Last year’s fRoots Critics Poll For Albums Of The Year didn’t include many new names in the top choices. 2015’s was quite different: a bit of a sea change with the first album by Stick In The Wheel – last year’s Editor’s Choice for an earlier EP – making the coveted top spot.

Two previous winners make the top ten – Bassekou Kouyate (2007) and Sam Lee (2012). Leveret and Simpson, Cutting & Kerr are new teamings of well known names (including Andy Cutting in both cases – a good year for him) while Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino are a generation change of line-up in a band who have been going for many decades. But elsewhere in the Top 10 (and indeed 20) there’s an abundance of new or relatively recently established names. It’s also worth mentioning that only one of the top 10 (Leveret again) is an all-male line-up, a massive and positive difference to the world of mainstream popular music.

Over in our ‘compilations, re-issues and historical’ category it was neck-a-neck between the re-issue of an iconic English traditional classic, a massive retrospective of an American folk blues legend and a great, previously unreleased archive recording of Senegalese superstar Youssou N’Dour and his band in full flight back in 1987. The latter gets that prize, but the giant, lavishly assembled Folkways set of Lead Belly recordings managed to win our award for ‘Best Packaged’ album.

We have the biggest and most widely sourced – locally and internationally – independent panel of experts of any annual poll in our fields of music – nearly 300 of them. We ask them to nominate six new single artist albums; four re-issues, historical issues or compilations; and three albums that they consider to be the best packaged of the year. We give guidance as to what’s eligible – basically, any music that falls into fRoots’ loose remit of “anything from anywhere with roots in a tradition” – that has been released since November the previous year. This process produces a shortlist of ‘nominees’ which we announce in early November to help them all get a bit of extra mileage. Over the next two pages, in detail, are the placed final results – the nearest thing to a definitive guide to the best folk, roots and world music releases that there is.

And finally, your Editor’s Choice. Noting that a tendency of many other magazines and websites was to have only one or two people making their picks, he didn’t see why he should be left out! This award is designed to give a deserved leg-up to the smallest of independent imprints, often artist-run labels that many of our big panel won’t come across. And this year it goes to a mesmerising band from Oxford who we were proud to put on our October cover and feature – as did our main Album Of The Year winners – in one of our fRoots curated events as part of Sidmouth Folk Week 2015.

1. Stick In The Wheel From Here (From Here)
2. Anna & Elizabeth Anna & Elizabeth (Free Dirt)
3. Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba Ba Power (Glitterbeat)
4. Sam Lee & Friends The Fade In Time (Nest Collective)
5. Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino Quaranta 40 (Ponderosa)
6. The Rheingans Sisters Already Home (RootBeat)
7.=Emily Portman Coracle (Furrow)
Leveret New Anything (RootBeat)
9.=Simpson, Cutting & Kerr Murmurs (Topic)
Vieux Farka Touré & Julia Easterlin Touristes (Six Degrees)
11. Mbongwana Star From Kinshasa (World Circuit)
12. False Lights Salvor (Wreckord)
13.=Olivia Chaney The Longest River (Nonesuch)
Jackie Oates The Spyglass & The Herringbone (ECC)
Songhoy Blues Music In Exile (Transgressive)
Spiro Welcome Joy And Welcome Sorrow (Real World)
The Unthanks Mount The Air (Rabble Rouser Music)
18.=Ballaké Sissoko & Vincent Segal Musique De Nuit (No Format!)
Blick Bassy Akö (No Format)
Kandia Kouyaté Renascence (Stern’s)
Tom & Ben Paley Paley & Son (Hornbeam)