Lisa O’Neill: All of This Is Chance - Spectral, subtle and sublime

It may be over four years since Lisa O’Neill’s previous album (Heard a Long Gone Song) but she hasn’t allowed the grass to grow under her feet, as All of This Is Chance shows. Worked on quietly throughout the pandemic (with only a version of Bob Dylan’s All the Tired Horses for the television crime drama series Peaky Blinders breaking the silence), the songs here fuse O’Neill’s elemental explorations with more textured arrangements that we have been used to hearing from her.

One of many highlights is Old Note. Inspired by the traditional musician Tony McMahon, the track features one of Colm Mac Con Iomaire’s most atmospheric orchestral embellishments; placing the instrumental reveries beside O’Neill’s vocal delivery is, for some, perhaps, the ultimate sonic challenge, but there has always been something unclearly brilliant about a voice that is so recognisable and reedy.

At least it’s authentic, and never more so on songs such as Whisht; The Wild Workings of the Mind; Birdy from Another Realm; and the closing track, Goodnight World. In particular, it is this last one that could well be O’Neill’s most true calling card to date: a spectral, subtle lullaby that shares links between life (“settle your head, pet, send your bones to sleep”) and death (“everyone I love lies under you tonight”), and which places her in a league if not a world of her own.