Brandy Clark with Heather Rankin and Ian Noe

Having authored dozens of country hits for the likes of Kacey Musgraves, Miranda Lambert and Toby Keith, Brandy Clark won an all-genre Best New Artist Grammy nomination with her own first album, 2013’s 12 Stories. Her stunning voice and sharply-observed songs, straddling styles from classic twang to Southern rock, earned two more Grammy nods for 2016 follow-up Big Day in a Small Town, with Rolling Stone hailing her a “country visionary”.

Best known via her long career with the Rankin Family, Cape Breton singer-songwriter Heather Rankin made her solo recording debut with 2016’s A Fine Line, an exquisite collection of traditional and original material, plus the odd unexpected cover.

Ian Noe draws on the day-to-day life of Eastern Kentucky on his debut album, Between the Country. Recorded in Nashville with unhurried production by Dave Cobb, these 10 original songs introduce a number of complicated characters, diverse in their own downfalls but bound together by Noe’s singular voice.