THERE'S this ornate house on the beach near where I live, and within the ostentatious landscaping are hidden speakers that look like rocks.

From the cleverly disguised speakers come the voices of Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett and the melodies from the Great American Songbook, which wafts along the shoreline, putting everyone who passes in a breezy mood.

Recently, people have been trotting out the oldies to revive their careers, with Rod Stewart, Carly Simon, Michael McDonald and, God help us, Michael Bolton introducing new audiences to the arrangements of Cole Porter and the like.

I suppose that's a good thing in some respects, but there is something not quite right about it.

"It's so smooth and schlocky that you're suspicious of it," suggests Erin McKeown, who recently released a phenomenal standards record of her own. Sing You Sinners is the musical equivalent of a sugar rush, delivering sweet and fizzy fun coating your face in the form of caffeinated jazz and blues.

This is exuberant music that gets its energy with wild trombones, slapping bass lines, swinging ride cymbals, and the odd tambourine thrown in for good measure. McKeown chooses esoteric songs that are footnotes in the Great American Songbook from the 1930s, '40s, and '50s.

When I first reviewed this release last March I declared that this was the best thing I heard all year; that's still the case today. I mentioned the whimsical, wacky feeling of the record to Erin, and she jumped all over it.

"There is a wackiness to the album," she says. "We made it in four days and then we did little massaging later, as opposed to tinkering a lot in the studio. It all happened in that moment. We are all really good friends and we love to goof off and I think that's the reason this record came off so fun and breezy to the listener."

McKeown does innovative takes on classics like "Paper Moon," which is done in a calypso style, and "Rhode Island Is Famous for You." She claims the timeless melodies that made these tunes classics to begin with is another reason why the CD was so fun to make.

"It was so much fun because you can do a lot to them and they withstand a lot and still sound like themselves. We did a game show version of 'Paper Moon' and people did not think it was interesting. We did a waltz version as well and nothing was really working. Allison the drummer did that rhythm and we all went with it. You can lay a simple song on a beat like that and it will work."

McKeown, who has released a number of CDs full of original material over the years, says the idea for the CD came to her in the Emerald Isle.

"These are songs I always did for fun," she says. "I felt an affinity for it and didn't think of the schlocky stuff going on with recording the classics that some of the older singers are doing. Otherwise, I might not have done it!

"I was done with the touring of my last original record in Ireland and was thinking it might be fun to make a quick jazz album. I wasn't aware of it and if I did I might have thought twice about it. I was doing some of those songs in concert and people wanted it on record."

McKeown, an Irish American whose family hails from Maghera in the North, has been enjoying success in Ireland with Sing You Sinners. She claims she was "raised with shamrocks on the front porch" but that there was not much depth into her Irish roots beyond that.

"I was raised Catholic which did affect my art. The language is mystical and I found the language of the ceremony poetic. I don't always agree with evangelical Christians, but the way they talk about God is poetic," she feels.

"The response from Ireland has been amazing," she enthuses. "It's one of my favorite places if not my favorite place. Irish care about words and really want to be there.

"I usually come to Ireland from the U.K. and it's so vastly different. I have yet to find an audience that matches them. I usually play Galway, Cork and Dublin. I have played smaller, in Donegal and Cork. I play art festivals over there. It's such a rush to play there."

Irish music fans, including myself, first came to know her on the Irish station 2FM's compilation CD Even Better Than the Real Thing, a disc of U2 covers performed by the likes of Damien Dempsey and the Frames. McKeown did the dark "So Cruel," and added a playful jazz slide guitar that changed the song.

"It was my second choice but I thought it would be amusing to take it out of the dark plodding U2 thing and lighten it up," she says.

"If for nothing else I did it because of my own amusement. I do that in my set right now and it sometimes stumps people; they think they know the song but they can't put a finger on it. So, it's fun for them and for me."

McKeown has been hard at work at new material, which is considerably darker than the fare on Sing You Sinners.

"It's been written for a while," she reports. "Now that I have made the consummate breezy record and I loved it, I am looking to do something more orchestral, maybe darker. I am not breezy and wacky at all times. I think good music explores all the crannies of my personality."