This collection of self-penned songs from Gwyneth Herbert, album number seven following her brilliant 2013 release The Sea Cabinet, coincides with the premiere of a new live show cocommissioned by Snape Maltings and Oxford Contemporary Music. Listening to Letters I Haven't Written is by turns moving, thrilling and entrancing, with Herbert pouring her storytelling gift into 11 exquisitely crafted songs, from the dramatic narrative arc of ‘And You Are’ to the laying bare of the Windrush debacle in the most recently penned song, ‘You’re Welcome’. Ranging from letters inspired by her work with refugee families in the Calais Jungle (‘Until The Dust Settles’) and the oneupmanship and finger pointing of social media (‘Don't Call Me That’) to the touching paean to her former music teacher Martin Read (‘More Of Everything’) and the need for a creative revolution in education (‘Tick Tock’), Letters evokes loss, memory, the solace of friendship and much more. The album arrangements are full of ear-catching detail, from tintinnabulating toy pianos and glockenspiels to Herbert's own multi-layered backing vocals, with the circuitous song structures often leading to codas of quite breathtaking emotive power.