Contemporary singers imagine how Karen Dalton originals might've sounded on Remembering Mountains

The idea of contemporary musicians adding music to long-lost lyrics is hardly a brand new one. Most famously, Wilco and Billy Bragg teamed up to provide melodies to a freshly unearthed verses by US folk figurehead Woody Guthrie on two Mermaid Avenue records in 1998 and 2000. Most recently, a selection of songwriters including My Morning Jacket's Jim James and Elvis Costello tackled unused lyrics by Basement Tapes-era Bob Dylan.

Remembering Mountains differs from its predecessors in one crucial way. Until these lyrics were discovered, there was no evidence that Karen Dalton dabbled in songwriting. Neither her two studio albums - It's So Hard to Tell Who's Going to Love You Best (1969) and In My Own Time (1971) - nor the string of archival releases (most notably 2007's primitive but hypnotic 1962 live set Cotton Eyed Joe) that trickled out since Dalton's records were rescued from deep obscurity by much-acclaimed and long overdue 2006 reissues included a single original composition. Praised by Bob Dylan, Nick Cave and many, many others, Dalton - armed with 12-string guitar and banjo - emerged as the ultimate siren of folk-blues sorrow, a vocalist who's pain-wracked tones could wrench out the maximum amount of bittersweet emotion from material stretching from arcane traditional laments to choice cuts by such 60's contemporaries as Tim Hardin. Much like Billie Holliday, a frequently cited point of comparison, Dalton was so incredibly adept at rendering other people's songs hers and hers alone that songwriting seemed like an unnecessary muddling of her skillset. However, these 11 tracks prove that some of the creative frenzy on the early 60's New York folk scene where Dalton first gained renown must have rubbed off.

The eleven artists gathered here are faced with the unenviable task of imagining what Dalton's own songs may have sounded like had she gotten around to finishing and recording them before dying of an AIDS-related illness at the age of 55 in 1993 . Perhaps tellingly, the few moments when the proceedings veer very close to Dalton's preferred musical terrain prove the least effective: without that one-off voice to call on, you simply can't beat Dalton at her own game. The moments when the singers get braver with stamping their own personality on the material prove much more memorable. The only cut here that gives Dalton a (partial, for the chords) credit for the music as well as the lyrics, Sharon Van Etten's title track is a tremendous, slow-simmering ballad that could fit seamlessly on Are We There both musically and thematically. Diane Cluck's harmony-soaked "This Is Our Love" - filled with rich imaginary about the ups and downs of relationships - nods musically towards Linda Perhacs with excellent outcomes. Lucinda Williams' dust-coated drawl adds a steely glint to the sadness of "Met An Old Friend". The spectral cooing of Julia Holter's "My Love, My Love" and the electronic abstractions of Laurel Halo's "Blue Notion" venture the furthest out from Dalton's familiar domain, the latter cut especially cutting any and all ties to what Karen Dalton songs 'should' sound like.

Perhaps fittingly, the stand-out cut pays tribute to the transformative potential of an uncommonly powerful voice. Although it sticks musically close to the predictably folky script, Marissa Nadler's stark and authoritative performance infuses the superb "So Long, Far Away" with a haunting ghostliness that virtually drips foreboding drama without trying too hard. "Loves illusion games may change/games that we all play/friends and lovers all become/so long far away," Nadler declares, providing a suitably fatalistic but far from dejected summary of both these tunes and Dalton's output on the whole.