Referencing blues, folk, jazz and Americana, singer, songwriter and composer Christine Tobin's Pelt completes a dazzling quadriptych of songbook albums made up of Tapestry Unravelled (2010), Sailing To Byzantium (2012) and A Thousand Kisses Deep (2014). Setting poems and lyrics by the Pulitzer Prize-winning Irish poet Paul Muldoon, Pelt is marked by its timbral richness and breathtaking imaginative scope. From the pulsing, groove-laden opener ‘Zoological Positivism Blues’ to the vast open spaces conjured up in ‘Horses’, the album achieves a remarkable equipoise of the hard-hitting and the understated. Whether in the beautiful, zen-like ‘Wind & Tree’ or the rambunctious ‘Big Idea’, Tobin's music never fails to leave its plaintive melodic mark. The preludial opening of the title track – a haunting solo flute line consisting of three expanding phrases which, when repeated, is double-tracked to create a ghostly resonance, followed by damped and plucked piano strings set against a backdrop of recorded rain – is typical of the utterly distinctive soundworlds that Tobin creates. Featuring a cast of players who are all perfectly attuned to Tobin's vision and artistry, Pelt is one of the year's must-hear albums.