Sarah McQuaid is a gifted and captivating performer whose warm, haunting alto is delicately cradled by her 'sparkling guitar' (Sing Out!). Song crafter and collector, she is at home with traditional Irish and Appalachian folk songs, Elizabethan ballads and 1930s jazz numbers. Produced by Gerry O'Beirne, there are 9 originals on this 13-song CD: Hardwick's Lofty Towers introduces a set of sister themes, spiritual questioning and the relationship between soul and place, that inspired a trio of originals; she covers John Martyn's Solid Air; S'Anc Fuy Belha Ni Prezada, a 13th century 'alba' in Old Occitan; John Dowland's Can She Excuse My Wrongs; and New Oysters New, a 3-part canon with vocalists Niamh Parsons and Tom Barry.