Here at The Croft, we love a bit of folk music. But such has been the magnitude of the genre explosion in Blighty over recent years that, from Tescos to Toyota adverts, you can barely escape the sound of one ethereally-voiced sylkie or another strumming whistfully on a mandolin and pining for the fjords. Let’s be honest, it’s getting hard to tell them apart.

Liverpudlian multi-instrumentalist Hannah Peel stands out from the crowd. Hailed by Drowned In Sound as ‘a genuine creative force in British folk music’, Hannah breathes new life into the genre. Her magical debut album, The Broken Wave, elevates a neo-folk sensibility with sophisticated song structures, adventurous instrumentations and a pop mogul’s appreciation of a great tune. As Q magazine put it, her songs are ‘inventively arranged, sweet without being cloying [and] there’s just the right hint of weirdness and mystery lurking beneath the fragile folk pop surface…in a word, charming.’

Sporting collaborations with the likes of Tunng’s Mike Lindsay and Nitin Sawhney, The Broken Wave has already garnered four star reviews from Uncut, Mojo and Q and prompted The Sunday Independent, The Irish Times, Mojo and Narc to flag Hannah as ‘One To Watch’ in 2011. How right they are.

Playing Glasgow February 25th.