The latest CD releases reviewed

EDEL SULLIVAN
In The Time Of Claddagh ****

There's a hint of dilettantism in Edel Sullivan's CD debut, In The Time Of, that quickly dissipates as the sheer eclecticism of her composing and playing coalesce. Sullivan bears a close kinship to the playing of the West Ocean String Quartet's Seamus McGuire - her long bowing and her keen ear for the grandeur lurking within small gestures both hinting at a player far longer in the tooth than she is. There's a baroque quality to the air, Ravi And Aisling's Wedding, that dissolves seamlessly in the pair of jigs, Off to the Island and Billy Rush's Own, the trio stitched together with gracious guitar accompaniment. Ilse deZiah's cello amplifies the classical lines of Red Sky, but this time one that highlights Sullivan's intuitive relationship with slingshot pianist, Bríd Dunne. Spellbinding. www.edelsullivan.com  Siobhán Long

AOIFE
If I Told You Claddagh *

That old adage to beware of women of monikers of the singular variety is certainly apt in relation to Aoife Ní Fhearraigh's latest collection. Whether a marketing ploy or one of ink conservation, If I Told You ambles so far down every easy listening bothareen and byway that it's positively soporific. From the opening strains of Love And Freedom, weighed down by cerebellum-scraping percussion, to the tedium of the piano and strings backdrop to Lullaby, this is a collection more suited to the anodyne world of TV soundtracks than to the collection of anyone with a healthy musical appetite. Vocally competent, Aoife never manages to stretch her voice past pedestrian, and positively smothers The Parting Glass in a tsunami of saccharine strings. Music for the prozac generation. www.claddaghrecords.com  Siobhán Long