Aoife O'Donovan
Album: Fossils
Label: Yep Roc
Tracks: 10
Website: http://www.aoifeodonovan.com

New York-based singer-songwriter Aoife's CV already encompasses quite a wide ambit, with a whole decade having elapsed since she founded the acclaimed alt-bluegrass/string-band outfit Crooked Still, since which time she's enjoyed collaborations with all manner of roots and bluegrass luminaries including Jerry Douglas and Chris Thile. And of course, Alison Krauss recorded Aoife's composition Lay My Burden Down on her 2011 album Paper Airplane, so it's fitting that Aoife should choose to begin her own debut solo record with her own definitive version of the song. After the characteristic twangy aura of that opener, the rest of the album displays equal inventiveness in terms of musical settings to frame Aoife's gorgeous singing voice, with some often unexpected colours permeating the textures.

The imaginative production's by Tucker Martine, by the way, who's already been responsible for albums by Lau and Beth Orton, but I can't credit any of the supporting musicians because, typically, that important info wasn't supplied with the promo disc - tho' I'd single out the pedal steel and electric guitar players as particularly outstanding. Even so, the focus remains on Aoife's special vocal qualities, and to Tucker's credit she never gets distracted or swamped by the constant drifts of the tonal landscape. The compelling combination of wistfulness and graceful power in Aoife's voice mirrors similar attributes in her writing, and a distinctive, and often quite dark, emotional perceptiveness marks every track, from the languid, hypnotic Red And White And Blue And Gold to the more forceful Beekeeper, from the more delicate Thursday's Child to the driving rhythms of Fire Engine, the dreamlike Fleetwood Mac vibe of Pearls to the majestic, haunting Glowing Heart and I'm Alone. But despite some very occasional impressions of elusiveness, caused I think by a shifting of focus of the listener's attention on each successive play, Fossils constitutes an assured and highly persuasive collection of contemporary Americana.

David Kidman