Kasey Chambers & The Fireside Disciples – Campfire (2018)

On her 12th studio album, Kasey Chambers returns to her nomadic childhood on the desolate Nullarbor Plain, where evenings were spent playing music around campfires. You can almost hear crackling embers behind the meditative moods and acoustic arrangements that do nothing to constrain her eclecticism. Accompanied by a band of Fireside Disciples including her father, Bill, she journeys into Appalachian folk and swampy blues while conjuring echoes of Africa in the swooping, a cappella harmonies of “Go On Your Way”. The constant is her voice—an incisive vehicle for longing and reflection that dovetails gracefully with Emmylou Harris on “The Harvest & the Seed”.