Singer and composer Christine Tobin hooked up with Belfast poet Paul Muldoon at the Kilkenny Arts Festival a few years ago, and that one-off collaboration has grown into this sprawling, enthralling song cycle of mock epic proportions.

Pelt strikes that most elusive of balances between familiarity and strangeness, by turns recalling Tom Waits, Kate Bush and Joni Mitchell, without being beholden to any particular genre or influence.

The Dublin-born, New York-resident singer has set Muldoon's wittily nuanced words (and some lyrics written specifically for the project) to music that veers from grungy, post-industrial grooves to wispy romanticism to abstracted contemporary classical, all played with punkish attitude by an excellent ensemble that includes guitarist Phil Robson, pianist Liam Noble and flautist Gareth Lockrane. christine-tobin.com