The Apathy Sessions is a bit of a misnomer for the deluxe edition of Aoife O’Donovan’s Age of Apathy. 

Released on the one-year anniversary of O’Donovan’s third solo LP, which is included in its entirety, the digital-only, expanded version includes two new covers on which O’Donovan plays every instrument and sings every part. She owns Sharon Van Etten’s “I Love You But I’m Lost” and absconds with Bill Callahan’s “Drover,” a must-hear track destined to become an O’Donovan classic in addition to proving her chops as a multi-instrumentalist and stacked-harmony vocalist. 

The balance of the bonus material is culled mostly from tracks O’Donovan released during quarantine and put on the available-only-at-gigs Turn up the Music and Do Whatever You Want Volume 1. There are joints with Milk Carton Kids, Donovan Woods and Kris Drever; covers of Joan Baez (“Love Song to a Stranger”) and Lin-Manuel Miranda (“What Else Can I Do?”) songs; and “Prodigal Daughter” from Live from the Hi•Fi. 

Completists already have most of these tracks. But for folks still familiarizing themselves with O’Donovan brand of modern folk music, the Apathy Sessions is an ideal place to start before working backward toward I’m with Her and Crooked Still.