An Droichend Beag "Mighty Session" Droichead Beag, DB001 (48 mins) Dial-a-track code: 1751
The "Droichead Beag" of the title refers to the eponymous pub in Dingle, now 10 years in business, and the album celebrates through the musicians and singers associated with this excellent establishment its contribution to traditional music in the town. Some of the players, like Seamus Begley, Steve Cooney, Tony Small and Eoin Duignan, are local regulars others, like Dolores Keane, Sharon Shannon, and Vinnie Kilduff are frequent visitors. The album has the pace and atmosphere of a party, and the feel good factor is high, this despite the fact that the tracks were recorded in different places at different times. From the first uplifting set of reels to the last sparkling horn pipe, there is a strong sense that here are musicians who are enjoying themselves.
Elsewhere there is a gala selection of polkas played by over 30 Droichead denizens and danced by the combined feet of the Cuas set dancers in glorious ceili hall acoustic, a flying set of reels from Vinnie Kilduff and "Banjo Gerry O'Connor, a duet from Dolores Keane and Liam Bradley and a sparsely accompanied song sung in melodious west Kerry Irish by Aine Ui Laoithe and Eibhlin Ui Chearna.
Eileen Ivers: "Wild Blue"
Green Linnet, GLCD 1166 (40 mins) Dial a-track code: 1861
Wild blue maybe, wild green certainly. This second solo album from Eileen Ivers sees her fleeing convention as fast as her fiddle will take her, biting hard the hand that fed her as she goes. The first track sets forth the agenda On Horseback rides in on a thunderous avalanche of percussion and explosive guitar, while the fiddle proceeds to deconstruct the reels Piper On Horseback and Jenny's Chickens through a succession of riff type explorations around the tunes, finally surrendering to a crashing snare onslaught. And so it goes. With the exception of the gracefully expressed Staker Wallace, and a very promising opening of delicate pizzicato and over dubbed fiddle counterpoint on Destitution, the album is a succession of overwrought, over busy, sometimes self indulgent musical interrogations which traditional music cannot sustain without injury.
Slightly Bewildered String Band
Starc Records, SCD 1095 (27 mins)
Dial-a-track code: 1971
A short album but a good one. The music type is hard to categorise neatly, but is basically string band and vocals with a contemporary feel. Primarily it is defined by the impressive talents of the five string banjo player Bill Whelan, the harmonica player Mick Kinsella, the guitarist Damien Gallagher and the singer and multi instrumentalist Sandi Miller. With one exception the band write their own material mainly instrumentals like the traditionally inspired, and technically accomplished, Rundle Street, a barn dance flawlessly rendered by fiddle and banjo and topped off with bravura flourishes of foot tapping and harmonica. There is also a wonderfully mean and angry version of Thom Moore's Saw You Running complete with snarling bass and harmonica stabs.
"Celtic Woman"
Celtic Woman Records, CWR 7001 CD (67 mins)
Dial-a-track code: 2081
Announcing itself as "60 minutes of some of the best in Celtic Vocal Music", Celtic Woman is about as misconceived a project as one can get. For starters only one genuine Celtic language (Irish) is represented in the voice of Maighread Ni Dhomhnaill, whose two contributions are the only reason for buying this album (for the same price, presumably, one can buy the whole album from which the songs Is Fada Liom Uaim I and An Cailin Gaelach are taken). As for the rest, the language is good old Anglo Saxon, while the presiding spirit derives more from the shopping mall than the tribal homeland. Rita Connolly, Aine Furey, Fiona Joyce, Marian Bradfield, Loreena McKennit and Melanie O'Reilly occupy no obvious common ground other than gender and whatever "Celtic" can be taken to mean it does not presumably include perfectly standard Western contemporary musical idioms as are to be found everywhere on this album. There may be some notional marketing justification for putting this collection together, but there is no evident musical one.
