“A meditation on solitude, with a defiant edge in her steely-soft vocals…immersive and complex.”-- Wall Street Journal
“Whether you’re listening to O’Donovan talk about it, or listening to the music itself, it’s clear that In the Magic Hour is a thoughtfully assembled and extremely intimate compendium – a window into her life and heart. Though she searched intensely within to make this album whole, it upholds a graceful restraint.” -- No Depression
“Gorgeous…The sparse-but-intricate arrangements speak to O'Donovan's conservatory training, but are delicately shaded with her pristine voice and smears of electric guitar or wisps of fiddle.” – Rolling Stone
“Sweetness and sadness find a tenuous balance in the voice of Aoife O’Donovan — and in the songs on her second album…evokes the reverberant chamber pop observations of Grizzly Bear…[and] the lush austerity of Alison Krauss.” — The New York Times
For a decade, Aoife O'Donovan featured as the captivating lead singer of the Boston-based progressive string band Crooked Still. She was a featured vocalist on The Goat Rodeo Sessions, the Grammy-winning album by Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer and Chris Thile. She has made regular appearances on A Prairie Home Companion and collaborated with some of the most eminent names in music across a wide variety of genres from Alison Krauss to Dave Douglas.
O'Donovan makes her first stop at The Shedd on tour in support of her new album, In The Magic Hour (Yep Roc Records, January 22), a 10 song album full of the singer's honeyed vocals mixed with gauzy, frictionless sounds: splashing cymbals, airy harmonies, the leisurely baritone musings of an electric guitar. Written in the wake of O'Donovan's grandfather's death, In the Magic Hour is her most introspective effort yet, an aching exploration of memory and mortality.