Various Artists: The Coleman Archive Volume I

(The Coleman Heritage Centre)

If ever you needed proof that the hills were alive around Sligo's "Coleman country", bend the head to this extraordinary archive recorded by P. J. Hernon and others. The sessions go back to Tom Cawley's great fiddle flights in the 1940s, but most are more recent: head-turning fiddlers like Mick Regan, Tom McGowan, Seamus Horan or the chipper Tommy Clogs Gallagher; Pakie Duignan's lovely breakneck flute, or Christy Hannon's, made from a cartwheel spoke. There's singers, Ballintubber accordions, rangy didlers and irrepressible whistlers; the late great Josie McDermott, and indeed Paddy Killoran belting through Kitty Down the Lane in the 1950s. Proper order indeed, to let the past have its blast.

Mic Moroney

Billy Cooper, Walter & Daisy Bulwer and friends: English Country Music (Topic Records)

From the rural Norfolk village of Shipdham, this bizarre committee of melodeon, fiddles, dulcimer, piano, snare drum and pipe-and-tabor was recorded between 1959 and 1966. Old Walter played anything from mandolin-banjo to fiddle, with singy little bow-dragged harmonies. His wife, Daisy Bulwer, vamped along on piano or harmonium; Billy Cooper charmed the air with dulcimer; archivist Reg Hall played melodeon, and the great Scan Tester played concertina. The fare is English dance tunes, lots of hornpipes and polkas, rumpypumpy waltzes, which many, many tunes Irish ears will recognise. It may seem strangely shambolic at first, but it has a very peculiar power and charm.

Mic Moroney