Dean: Brigid Mae Power’s covers album is a classic of the form

Brigid Mae Power’s new project Songs for You revitalizes an antiquated concept: the covers album.

It happened so imperceptibly that nobody noticed such LPs come to be primarily associated with Great American Songbook cash-ins, reliable Mother’s and Father’s Day gifts, the realm of swing singers whose audiences are not always fired up by the prospect of new compositions. But covers albums have often been found in the oeuvres of great artists – David Bowie’s Pin-Ups, Strange Little Girls by Tori Amos, et al. – and Power’s approach is one of revitalization and discovery.

This is the Galway native’s second attempt at the concept after the six-song EP Burning Your Light, which came out in 2021. If there’s a difference to her methodology this time around, it may be down to the “you” in the title – this album is dedicated to Power’s father.

Has she cribbed her dad’s record collection for inspiration? Selected songs that provided a soundtrack for meaningful moments in their relationship? Whatever the case, Power’s connection to the music feels personal. Maybe, though, that’s because she’s an artist who always seems to elicit a sense of bare-hearted openness.

Burning Your Light saw Power blend songs from canonical folk artists (Bob Dylan, Townes Van Zandt) with more surprising draft picks, such as Patsy Cline’s broken-hearted country classic “Leavin’ On Your Mind”. The selections for Songs for You, her fifth studio album, veer even more wildly across the stylistic map: there’s cuts from rock‘n’roll’s dark-edged soulman Roy Orbison, and art punk guitar strangler Tom Verlaine. Most curious is “Rose Marie”, a composition penned by Otto Harbach and Oscar Hammerstein II in the 1920s (a famous version by Slim Whitman appeared in the Wes Anderson movie Asteroid City).

Despite casting her net widely, Power snaps everything into line. This is bare-bones folk music – four of the nine songs were recorded at home, while the rest were laid down at Analogue Catalogue in Newry with Julie McLarnon, a producer who takes pride in her digital-free values. The guitar play is austere – Power’s short strums on Verlaine’s “I See No Evil” pitter patter out of the speaker – and the vocals can feel ethereal and in the wind, a delicate husk air that carries the melodies with grace.

There’s nothing here comparable to, say, the epic sweep of empowerment anthem “Don’t Shut Me Up (Politely)”, from 2018, on which she sounds like she could control the wind and sea with one clenching of her fist. Instead, the music creaks, often with a greyscale sadness. By the time Power revels in the naturalistic imagery of Bert Jansch’s “Fresh As A Sweet Sunday Morning” (“Let there be music to please her/ Let it be sun bright to light up her day/ Let the moon light her night/ And fill her with deep silent sleepiness”) it’s impossible to consider this is a set that was recorded in this century.

There is Power’s version of Neil Young’s classic deep cut “Mellow My Mind”. Seizing on Young’s plea to his lover to help calm his hyperactive id, she pares back the original’s up-tempo, harmonica-drenched folk rock for a more dulcet arrangement featuring acoustic guitar and a splash of organ, transforming it into a highly soothing experience.

The most interesting song choice is “Missing You”, written by Cork singer-songwriter Jimmy MacCarthy but most famously performed by Christy Moore. Set in 1986, it follows an Irish immigrant in London and their lingering sadness at being forced onto an emigrant ship in search of work. The message is sadly relevant. Power’s performance comes as recent statistics revealed the highest levels of emigration in nine years. But there’s a second lesson here. In “Missing You”, the Irish emigrant finds themselves labeled a terrorist by ignorant locals. Let it be a sobering reminder to those who would listen to offensive and misguided rhetoric about immigrants in Ireland as a disproportionate threat to the population that, in the past, that door has swung the other way.

Brigid Mae Power performs at Bello Bar on 22 March.