Artists:Caroline Lavelle

From the early 1980s to early 90s as a member of De Dannan spanning the golden years of that legendary group (alongside Mary Black and Dolores Keane), her three record tenure with Loreena McKennitt and as a current touring member of The Chieftains, Caroline Lavelle has maintained the thread of creativity that connects her to her Celtic heritage and rural English roots. This is Chamber-Folk at its finest.

She has been at the forefront of expanding those traditions into the field of Electonica via her work with Massive Attack (Home Of The Whale) and William Orbit (Moorlough Shore), Jam Nation (She Moved Through The Fair) and the Afro Celt Sound System.

'A Distant Bell' brings it all back home with thirteen songs that includes two versions if the Wicker Man soundtrack favourite 'Gently Johnny', Pentangle's 'The Trees They Do Grow High' and Fotheringay's 'Banks Of The Nile'. Another stand-out is a luminous version of 'Greenwood Laddie' underpinned by David Bedford's gorgeous arrangement for choir and orchestra.

This website will also features a free download of the demo of 'Bushes and Briars' which Caroline sang throughout the Loreena McKennitt 'Book Of Secrets' world tour .

The work of the First World War poet Siamanto (first heard on 'Brilliant Midnight') makes another appearance in the song 'Handful Of Ashes' which Caroline sings here in the original Armenian.

Two songs feature lyrics by 'Liverpool Poet' Brian Patten, whose work Caroline also recorded on her 1995 Warner Brothers debut album, 'Spirit'. Patten is himself no stranger to the potential of collaborations in this idiom having worked with Linda Thompson (then Linda Peters) on his 1971 album 'Vanishing Trick : Poems and Songs'.

Apart from David Bedford, Caroline's musical collaborators here include another 'Spirit' era colleague, arranger and co-producer Harvey Brough, dazzling electric fiddle virtuoso Hugh Marsh and also legendary Chieftain Paddy Moloney who makes a cameo appearance on 'Farewell To Music'.

Fans of Sandy Denny, Nick Drake, Vaughan Williams, Loreena McKennitt, Kate Bush, June Tabor, Kathleen Ferrier, Pentangle, Shirley Collins, Maddy Prior, Planxty, Linda Thompson & Roy Harper will find much to enjoy here.

For those listeners to whom this is new ground, 'A Distant Bell' opens a window on a 900 year treasure trove of musical tradition - to quote the call to arms of a previous generation of Folk Rock pioneers, "It All Comes Round Again.".