Karan Casey - Two More Hours (2014)

How refreshing it is to hear an artist depart from the certainties of the road well travelled. Karan Casey does just this on her latest, highly personal collection of original songs. Delving deep beneath the skin of contemporary songwriting, her voice seeks purchase in the cracks and crevices where real life makes its mark on us. With her husband, Niall Vallely, on production duties, Casey swoops and soars through jazz- and pop-inflected arcs, with sometimes startling results. Wisely choosing a rich mix of accompanists (Kenneth Edge on saxophone, Aoife O’Donovan and Abigail Washburn on vocals, Trevor Hutchinson on double bass), she tips into doo-wop playfulness (Fishes Will Fly) and poignant memory (Sorrows Away), with the strangest echoes of Antony Hegarty (he of the Johnsons). These new pastures invigorate Casey beautifully.