Every season has its own moods, and soundscapes of winter are captured by singer Ashley Davis on Songs of the Celtic Winter II. Her latest album follows other projects that have presented the evocative singer’s cross-cultural, ethereal blend of Celtic, folk, pop and Americana. The Kansas native attended and graduated from the University of Limerick’s World Music Centre. Writing music that lives between continents and speaks to two national traditions, her musical background, experience, preferences and talent give Davis a unique skill set for fusing ancient tones with modern cross-cultural interpretation.  As a performer, she has moved between Nashville, New York, Ireland and the Isle of Man.

Released in 2013, Davis’ first volume of Songs of the Celtic Winter featured a traditional English carol, a 9th-century Irish poem sung to a Breton air, contemporary settings of pieces from Turlough O’Carolan and Robert Burns, as well as several originals. Her studio album, Night Travels, in 2014, proved that Celtic music could be inventive, honor history, and all the while spread magic. In 2015, The Christmas Sessions album featured Ashley Davis with multi-instrumentalist John Doyle in a playful set of Christmas standards. She followed that in 2018 with When the Stars Went Out, a project that stretched the creative limits of her vocal and arrangement skills by experimenting with electronic music to sing, in the Celtic tradition, at a new level and with new musical perspectives.

Davis’ 2022 release, Songs of the Celtic Winter II employs her signature ethereal, soft-focused, new age sound in the style of her mentor, Máire Brennan, who made a name for herself with the influential family group Clannad. While Davis covers Tommy Makem’s “The Curlew’s Song” from one side of the Atlantic, she also vocalizes an inspired rendition of Gordon Lightfoot’s “Song for a Winter’s Night.”

Davis’ own original compositions are within the same vein, and she collaborates with other musicians featured on her various albums. She penned “The Snows of Marrakesh” and “Song of Midnight” with John Doyle. Singer and guitarist Shane Hennessy is featured on a song they co-wrote, “Silver Lights.” Three songs (“A Winter’s Dream,” “Into Emptiness” and “Let Merry Meet”) were written with the album’s co-producer and multi-instrumentalist Gawain Mathews who tracks mandola, bass, percussion, guitar, piano, synthesizers and programming. Other stellar instrumentalists provide understated colorings of cello, fiddle, low whistle or harp. Guitarist Mick McAuley wrote “Sailing Back to You,” and the album closes with Ashley Davis’ self-penned “Most Days” that is a strong sequel to her original featured on volume 1, “These Winter Days.” I look forward to seeing her lyrics from this project uploaded on her website soon.   

With this album, Davis’ goal was to create a musical set that will become the cornerstone of every winter’s night. She has succeeded brilliantly in her creation of Celtic mood-music, although I wish the audio was even higher quality. Still, her evocative vocals and empathetic singing style, along with an inspired body of material, give her Celtic-infused folk pop contemporary relevance invested with gravity and emotion. Like Karen Matheson, singer with Capercaillie, Ashely Davis’ songs are thoughtful, effective and gorgeously poised to present a polished multi-textured mélange of folk pop stylings centered on luminous vocals. It’s clear to see how the Songs of the Celtic Winter II achieved the #1 spot in December 2022 on The Roots Music Report’s Top Celtic Albums Chart.  The music of Ashley Davis offers cultural history, daydreams, heartbreak, and unbound imagination. (Joe Ross, Roots Music Report)