Jennifer Cutting’s Ocean Orchestra - Ocean: Songs for the Night Sea Journey ($13.99) 

Jennifer Cutting led the English-style folk-rock band The New St. George, which broke up circa 1995. Ocean (2004) is her new project, which heads off in a slightly different direction. Seven years in the making, Ocean features an all-star cast including Maddy Prior and Peter Knight (Steeleye Span), Troy Donockley (Iona), Dave Mattacks (Fairport Convention, Tull), Polly Bolton (Dando Shaft, Albion Band), Gabriel Yacoub (Malicorne), and many others. Jennifer is the composer and arranger and plays keyboards and squeezeboxes, while four female lead singers are employed, all with beautiful voices. This is a rather novel blend of traditional Celtic/British Isles music with symphonic rock, new age, and some electronic effects, loops, and samples. A Bulgarian women’s singing group adds a world music flavor to one track, while a string quartet plays on two others. Another track is a rearrangement of one of Steve Morse’s baroque instrumentals (Sleep, from The Dixie Dregs’ Freefall), using piano, violin, and low whistle. Gustav Holst and J.S. Bach get in on the act too. The whole album serves as a metaphor for a mid-life transformation, and the tri-fold digipack with 16-page booklet is one of the most elaborate you will see.

“There are so many astounding elements in this music that is hard to describe them all. Cutting’s blend of traditional Irish adaptations, soaring musical compositions that include new age, Celtic and classical styles and her exceptional use of subject matter, i.e., the ocean in myth and reality make her one of the most creative composers I have ever heard. Moreover, her bringing together of some of the world’s most renown musicians and vocalists make the album one of the best ever to escape the genre.” [New Age Reporter]