LAURA Gibson has practised what she preaches on La Grande, her cinematic follow-up to 2009’s Beasts Of Seasons.

She turned a 1962 Shasta trailer into a makeshift studio and private writing den, and the subsequent songs feel old yet new and purposeful too, matching the vehicle’s restoration and transformation.

The album has a theme of journeys and transitions, and while her vintage voice echoes with blues and folk singers of the past, she addresses her desire to move on. That voice is the most distinctive feature, Gibson layering as many as 15 vocal takes on certain tracks, recorded at home, but she also handles all manner of instruments too, from pump organ to marching drum.

Not that she is a one-woman band. Among her myriad guests is Joey Burns of Calexico, another City Slang act whose work chimes with the past. Over the past 13 years, they have released eight exclusive “tour only” LP and now they have compiled them in an exclusive box set limited to 1,100 copies worldwide.

So exclusive, alas, that you will have missed out already. Never mind, Burns and co have very kindly cherry-picked 16 of their Americana-Mariachi best, and it serves as the perfect primer for songs that were far too good to have been thrown away as outtakes, one-off curios and studio experiments.