Arcady:"Many Happy Returns"
Dara, CD080 (68 mins)
Dial-a-track code: 1751
This second album from Arcady represents a return to the mainstays of the instrumental repertoire in traditional music from the first reel The Maid Of Mount Cisco to the final Bucks Of Ornamore. Of Cape Breton, Galicia, Eastern Europe, Cajun or the remoter reaches of regional provenance, there is none. The generous allocation of seven songs chosen by singer Niamh Parsons are very much "singers' songs", the kind that would feature at a good session.
What Arcady does with all this material, which has been countless times around the block, is to work away at the edges and the underside, expand.ing in subtle and delightful ways the rhythmic and percussive possibilities of the tunes. The creative energies of Johnny McDonagh, Patsy Broderick, Nicholas Quemener, Conor Keane and Brendan Larrisey are augmented by Liam Maonlai, Niall Martin, Brendan Power, and the incomparable Voice Squad on vocals. The melting harmonies of the latter are heard with Niamh Parsons on a version of The Rambling Irishman sung a cappella and again on The Banks Of The Lee. But it is The Banks Of Sullane which steals the show. Against Niamh Parson's tenderly phrased melody line Liam Maonlai's exquisite piano arrangement floats by for a mesmerising five minutes, 25 seconds.
But it is a set of jigs, The Battering Ram/The Geese In The Bog/The Pipe On The Hob on which the ingenuity of Arcady is given fullest expression. An artillery of percussive techniques, from bass thud to filigree bone work, impels unfettered fiddle and frisky keyboards while the box engages with gasping harmonica stabs. The overall effect is that of hearing the engine of a jig working from the inside. So to speak.
Paul McGrattan/Paul O'Shaughnessy: "Within A Mile Of Dublin"
Faetain, SPINCD1000 (55 mins)
Dial a track code: 18.61
Sharing a Christian name, a northside Dublin upbringing and a family involvement in traditional music, the two Pauls McGrattan the flute player and O'Shaughnessy the fiddle player were also drawn at an early age to the Donegal style and repertoire. All of this and more is represented on Within A Mile Of Dublin, the outcome of their musical partnership. Both were lucky to have learned from exemplary traditional musicians who lived in their neighbourhoods "within a mile of Dublin". The album and the sleeve notes describe a tradition which is no longer location dependent but still enlivened and sustained by those sturdy regional developments which survived standardisation. O'Shaughnessy's spirited rendering of three classic Donegal reels, My Love Is In America/Paddy Ryan's Dream/Mother's Delight is part homage to the source and wholly current in its energy and attack.
Ditto McGrattan's bravura flute playing on President Garfield's/The Rat In The Thatch/The Otter's Holt, while the air Lament For Glencoe is a study in control, sparsely ornamented and expressively phrased. As a duo they are as compatible as their mutual affinities suggest; on the set of barn dances, The Tuesday/Mick Carr's/Dermot McLaughlin's, the two appear to merge into a collective musical persona; elsewhere, as in The Bell Harbour Reel/The Wild Irishman/The Pretty Girls Of Mayo, augmented by bouzouki, bodhran and guitar, they prove themselves equipped with all the skills of contemporary traditional players den chead scoth.
"L'Imaginaire Irlandais"
Keltia Musique, KMCD63 (75 mins) Dial-a-track code: 1971
Released by the Breton ethnic music label Keltia to coincide with the music programme, of L'Imagnaire Irlandais pow playing nationwide in France, this lengthy CD is a brave attempt to come to grips with the "irlandais" element in the musical "imaginaire".
such a brief it is not surprising that traditional and traditionally based music predominates, as does more or less contemporary material. So we get the relatively recent Riverdance with the venerable but evergreen Harry's Game. Of the "supergroups" Altan, The Chieftains and an elderly De Dannan track are included. Of the instrumental virtuosi there are Sharon Shannon Liam O'Flynn and Davey Spillane. What there isn't, is any unaccompanied singing or playing. Pity.