I'd love to hear more about contemporary, or new younger folk singers, that sing a capella. Stephanie Hladowski is the only one I can really think of.

I mean, obviously, lots of people sing unaccompanied when they're doing a floorspot or a show at a folk club.

But what I'm getting it is that it's not often you hear of a singer brave enough in this day and age to actually record an album, or even just a single or EP, wholly unaccompanied.

There's a good reason for that: it's not exactly a sound commercial move. I'm hoping Sam Lee's forthcoming album has at least one or two unaccompanied tracks.

The other night at Sharp's Folk Club, after the launch of the new Penguin book of English Folk Songs book, there was a huge amount of singers.

The Cecil Sharp House bar was the most packed I've ever seen it. And it made it a wonderful night: you got all the regulars at Sharp's, who it's fair to say are very old-school folk (in the best possible way), next to anyone who happened to have come along to the book launch.

So you got to hear a wide plethora of unaccompanied voices. From old men singing sean nos beautifully to young rather poseur-ish trendysomethings singing rather affectedly, and everything in between. Beautiful performances, bad performances, but all affecting and interesting. It was a real barometer of an evening.