On
Bushes & Briars,
Susan McKeown brings her eloquent and haunting voice -- as well as the instrumental talents of a distinguished cast of supporting musicians -- to bear on a set of traditional Celtic and British songs. Most of her accompanists are Irish musicians, but the arrangements are anything but traditional:
McKeown sings "In London So Fair" over a shimmery bed of looped whistles and mandolins; "Bonny Boy" is delivered a cappella in a controlled voice that hints at an underlying frenzy of rage and sexual frustration; and her accompaniment on "The Mountain Streams Where the Moorcocks Crow" consists entirely of tabla, tambura and low whistle -- a truly bizarre instrumentation that fits so perfectly with her quiet, resigned delivery that you may not even notice its strangeness.
McKeown has taken an ancient repertoire and made it entirely new and her own, with wonderful results.