“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
 

"Vocalist of the rarest quality..." - Hot Press

“Like the greatest torch singers, such as Billie Holiday, she makes us believe she is sharing confidences, singing just to us.”

- Boston Globe

Karan 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 Capercaillie member Donald Shaw, Casey surrounded herself with a wealth of special guests including Caoimhín Vallely (piano), Cillian Vallely (pipes), Kate Ellis (cello), Kris Drever (vocals), Martin O’Neill (bodhrán), 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.

2006 saw her spotlighted on the Solas Reunion CD, as a guest vocalist for another well-known Irish group, Lúnasa, as well as joining Peggy Seeger in a special “Songs of Conscience” program at Glasgow’s Celtic Connections Festival. In 2007, Casey’s toured North America with a lineup that featured avant-garde classical musician Kate Ellis on cello, Caoimhín Vallely on piano, and longtime accompanist Robbie Overson on guitar. Casey began 2008 with an appearance at the renowned Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow and has announced tours in both Holland and the United States.

Chasing the Sun

Distant Shore

The Wind Begins to Sing

Songlines

Heidi Talbot:

Distant Future

Solas:

The Words That Remain

Bill Jones: Panchpuran