She may have recently come to wider attention thanks to her theme song (“The Wise Man’s Song”) and score for the hit Mackenzie Crook series Small Prophets, but for those of us in the know, Amelia Baker, better known as Cinder Well, has been a leading light in the alt-folk scene for over a decade. Following a starkly expressive debut EP in 2015, she released three albums of spellbinding songcraft and ever-increasing sonic depth.
She has a reputation as a purveyor of dark folk – hints of discord, lyrics rich with symbolic meaning – but this is only half the story, because Baker is also a talented melodicist whose songs stretch out and unfold with a natural if sometimes mysterious grace, drawing in influences from unexpected quarters. And as it turns out,…