Karan Casey - Ships in the Forest (2008)

Karen Casey is an artist who proves that the ancient and the modern make excellent bedfellows. One of the most influential and imitated vocalists in Irish or American folk music, her crystalline voice is as fragile as it is fierce. On SHIPS IN THE FOREST, her fifth solo album and debut on Compass Records, Casey's warm soprano ebbs and flows around ballads both timely and timeless. Produced by and featuring founding Capercallie member Donald Shaw, Casey surrounded herself with a wealth of special guests including Caoimhin Vallely (pipes), Kate Ellis (cello), Kris Drever (vocals), Martin O'Neill (bodhran), Niall Vallely (concertina) and Robbie Overson on guitar. The songs found on SHIPS IN THE FOREST range from fresh arrangements of tried and true folk standards ("Black is the Color of My True Love's Hair" and "Johnny I hardly Knew Ye") to "The Fiddle and the Drum", Joni Mitchell's 1969 anti-war madrigal.

Setting her clear voice in arrangements that mix traditional and modern instruments, she maintains the taut, quivering ornamentation of old ballad style, singing tales of love, war and murder with a gentle gravity. --The New York Times