There sure are a lot of bearded folk singers out there these days plying newly written age-old songs, but what sets this New Jersey roots songwriter apart is his craftsmanship. On his debut full-length, Clover Lane, Tolchin sings like a master woodcarver, each word shaping the song with effortless fluidity. There’s a strong kinetic motion to Tolchin’s vocals, a kind of snap that ends a verse at just the right moment. That’s the hand of a master at work—the same kind of easy motion you see in the hand of an artist as he or she whips pencil across paper. As a folk singer, he’s clearly indebted to the fruits of the 1960s folk revival, first as a young kid listening to his dad’s eclectic record collection (his father once ran a record store in the Mississippi Delta). As a teenager playing the Newport Folk Festival, he crossed the generational divide with songs that paid easy homage to Appalachian roots, country and urban blues, and old-school country. Now, at a still-young 21, Tolchin’s debut album, arriving by way of Yep Roc Records, is a pastiche of American roots traditions, but it’s a quiltwork that never succumbs to imitation. There’s something deliriously hopeful in Tolchin’s songs. It’s that feeling you got the first time a folk song truly moved you, a feeling Tolchin never lost. With Debbie Miller, Tobias the Owl.

Fremont Abbey, 4272 Fremont Ave. N., 414-8325, fremontabbey.org. $8 adv./$10 DOS. 8 p.m. Fri., Jan. 23.