"How does it help the image of English folk music?"

To be honest, it probably doesn't. But, one of the things I like about House & Land is that here are two excellent musicians who are deeply involved in the US experimental/ underground music scene, yet who are also knowledgeable about traditional music and comfortable enough with playing it to bring influences from their other musical lives into their song arrangements. To me this normalises folk music - it's not out on a limb but part of their wider musical lives. Jake Xerxes Fussell is another good example - a very good interpreter of traditional songs who is equally at home sharing a bill with rock and underground musicians as he is playing on more specifically folky stages (last time I saw him he was on tour with
Daniel Bachman).

Here's Jake Xerxes Fussell live on KEXP. He's got a UK tour in May. I already have tickets :-)