Songlines

Karan Casey sings for Solas, one of the hottest young Irish folk bands of the last five years. Her solo debut is a wonderful album, a program consisting primarily of traditional material presented with minimal arrangements that show off her crystalline voice to best advantage. The instrumentation is not always strictly traditional — that's an electric guitar providing cloudlike washes of chordal harmony on "She Is Like the Swallow" — but the overall feel is very much in the folk idiom. Despite the intrinsic lightness of her voice, Casey manages to deliver a blistering rendition of Ewan MacColl's acerbic "Ballad of Accounting," and she sings about the jilted "Roger the Miller" with deceptive sweetness. She also brings new energy and insight into such chestnuts as "Shamrock Shore" and "One, I Love." Her excellent backing musicians include members of Solas, notably flutist Seamus Egan, who also provides excellent production.