TarabTarquin Records * * * *

Turin-born Dubliner and musical alchemist Francesco Turrisi leads a new multi- cultural supergroup that fairly covers the waterfront with traditional flautist Emer Maycock and bodhrán player Robbie Harris, jazz saxophonist Nick Roth and contemporary classical cellist Kate Ellis. But it would be facile to call the resulting music "fusion". Tarab (an Arabic word denoting a kind of musical ecstasy) is a collective exploration of the deep currents, real and imagined, that flow between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. Not perhaps since Andy Irvine's celebrated East Windin 1992 has there been such a convincing reorientation of the Irish tradition. Ecstasy may be a little over-ambitious for their debut – the mood is sedate rather than exuberant – but there is undoubtedly transcendence here and, if they stay together, ecstasy may ensue. See tarab.ie