James Kelly: "Traditional Irish Music" (Capelhouse)
Dial-a-track code: 1971
This new record label sets itself the mission of celebrating the melodic core of traditional music, the listener's capacity to process. Kelly is a self-absorbed player, the "classical" sonority of his bowhand is augmented by a Clare "lonesomeness" in mediating his favoured big, older tunes and his own compositions. Thus the An Tri's a Rian hornpipe set has the stamp of Denis Murphy, yet is individual. When he plays with Paddy Keenan on The Lost And Found Jig, the sweetest of pipes/fiddle unison and mutual compliment is created. Zan McLeod on guitar and mandolin is an expert interpreter of Kelly's moodiness, and the fiddler himself is on his finest abandon on airs - Lament for Limerick and Dear Irish Boy, a nine-minute emotional engagement with Indian sitar classicism.
Waterson-Carthy: Common Tongue (Topic)
Dial-a-track code: 2081
Norma Waterson was the unlikely contender at the Mercury Music Prize ceremony last year with her haunting solo album of contemporary songs, but on this fine collection she returns to her beloved traditional roots with husband Martin Carthy and daughter Eliza. They make an awesome trio.
Carthy has one of the great character-filled English voices, while Norma Waterson's has the warm languid grandeur of someone at one with her material. Eliza's voice, as on Maid Lamenting, is as yet still an apprentice to those of her parents, but her fiddle playing, which colours the whole album, is both expressive and distinctive. All 13 tracks are English, but as Johnny Moynihan once said of Andy Irvine, we shouldn't hold that against them. The trio will be in Whelan's, Dublin, on Tuesday. Not to be missed.
Tony Furtado: Roll My Blues Away (Rounder)
Dial-a-track code: 2191
Furtado is an accomplished acoustic guitar and banjo player, who slips in and out of a variety of styles with an ease that belies the complexity of his picking. Ten of the 12 tracks are originals and the bulk of these are shimmering slide guitar of The Ghost of Blind Willie Johnson to the bluegrass influenced The Stark Raven, At times, his fluent evocative playing is redolent of Ry Cooder, making his slide paint vivid images with the twisting and turning of his bottleneck. Kelly Joe Phelps's soft moody voice is featured on two tracks, including the John Martyn-like Boat's Up The River, but there is no doubting Furtado's command of the aural landscape, low-key perhaps, but quietly captivating.
