Tommy Peoples: "An Ghleann Chiuin/ The Quiet Glen" (distributed by Ossian)

It has been a few years since The High Part Of The Road, Tommy Peoples's last solo outing with Paul Brady, but Peoples shows again here that, even among Donegal fiddlers down the years, he's an original: the whimsical musical sketching of the tunes, the tightly anchored bow-skip triplets, the swooning rolls which - like those of old-timers from an era beyond concert pitch - seem to hare off with the fairies. This is another highly individual recording, not least in that most of the tunes are his own, sprung very much from the tradition: from the blowsy opening waltz, Jocelyn's, originally a jig of his own, through the arcing phrases of his infectious and popular reel, The Green Fields Of Glentown, or the mischievous "descriptive hornpipes", with the trademark skittery runs of The Mouse In The Attic, or the shameless glissando miaows of The Fat Cat. The whimsicality even infects the tempo of Alph Duggan's respectful guitar accompaniment, which sometimes seems to almost stop and start as he shuffles between the unusual keys. Or tune into the lively laments Peoples makes of The Green Fields Of Americay and Hector The Hero. The sleeve notes are a running commentary of sideways humour, dedications to his first grandchild, Roisin Kate, or memories of Donegal and the ancestors in the derelict old house he once grew up in. Call them irrational forces, but it's often hard to known where the never-ending variations of Peoples's fiddle-playing are taking you. If it's really music you're after, this is a piece of rare beauty.