An album laced with magic, melody and empowerment

Trailblazing Cork-based singer-songwriter Karen Casey will share the fruits of her labour in the new year with new album ‘Nine Apples of Gold’.

A leading advocate for gender balance in the Irish folk and traditional music scene, Casey releases her new album on 24 February and has just unveiled the title track to the public.

Casey says the initial genesis for the song was inspired by Tonn Clíona, a supernatural woman from Glandore who was said to have 3 brightly coloured songbirds who ate apples from an otherworldly tree and sang so sweetly that they could cure all illness.

“I loved the magic in this story and thought a lot about how women carry tunes and songs and dance and bring so much healing to the world.

“The legend goes on to report that in order to flee from men who wanted to kill her because of her powers, Clíona changed herself into a wren and escaped,” says Casey.

For her latest body of work, Casey has teamed up with Sean Óg Graham, her long-time collaborator and friend, to create a dynamic and enchanting album of songs that speaks to healing, camaraderie in times of strife, finding enrichment and new life in campaigning for women, and of course death.

The empowerment of women is front and centre of Karan’s concerns as she gives voice to the notion that songs can sing what we cannot say. Her defiance, her vulnerabilities and her feminist heart bellow through these songs.

Adding their vocals to the album are Niamh Dunne on duet ‘Sister I am Here for You’, Pauline Scanlon on a searing feminist overlook of Ireland in a song entitled ‘I Live in a Country’, and Ríoghnach Connolly on ‘Daughter Dear’, a tender song between a mother and daughter.

Also joined by Conor McCreanor, John McCullough, Hannah Hiemstra and Kate Ellis among others, this is Karan’s 12th album and displays her fine poetic voice where she has taken traditional symbolism and shaken it by the neck to create an ode to mother nature and a poignant cry for change.

A Waterford native, Casey was among the vanguard of the Irish music revival’s “third wave” of the late 1980s/early 1990s, a founding member of the seminal Irish American band Solas before launching her solo career in 1999.

Though steeped early on in Irish traditional and folk music, Casey has long followed an eclectic path, whether studying classical music (she is a talented pianist), fronting jazz bands or working with Frank Harte, a much-revered folk/traditional singer from Dublin. The list of artists she’s performed with is similarly diverse: James Taylor, Maura O’Connell, Karen Matheson, the Boston Pops Orchestra, Tim O’Brien, The Chieftains, The Dubliners, and Béla Fleck, among others.

Casey will play Triskel Arts Centre on 29 April as part of her upcoming Irish tour.

‘Nine Apples of Gold’ is out on 24 February via Crow Valley Music.