The Flanagan Brothers "Tunes We Like To Play On Paddy's Day"

Viva Voce 007, 74 minutes

Dial-a-track code: 1641

Impeccably remastered and presented as usual, this is Harry Bradshaw's seventh release on his Viva Voce label. A one man Smithsonian, Bradshaw is both engineer and archivist hence the pristine acoustic and meticulously researched biographical and disco graphical detail.

The Flanagan brothers Joe, Louis, and Mike, Waterford born emigrants to the US developed their unique style of ensemble playing and singing just as the American recording industry was emerging. Columbia, even in 1923 a major player, signed the brothers, who were then in their 20s, and kept them on the label until the end of the decade.

This compilation represents well the full range of the Flanagans' material, including two sketches" genuine comic antiques of Irish American Vaudeville. The title Tunes We Like To Play On Paddy's Day further locates the music in the places of entertainment favoured by Irish Americans with the money and disposition for leisure.

Of the brothers it was Joe, who played accordion, who was the prime innovator, quick to exploit popular music hall idioms which, when adapted to the family repertoire, resulted in the unique Flanagan Brothers sound. Songs like The Grand Hotel In Castlebar, Little Bridget Flynn, and Ireland's 32 presented Irish material emanating from music hall, arranged for banjo, accordion, and guitar, and set off by characteristic Flanagan harmonies. Their instrumental style was similarly eclectic and innovative.

The gusto and "sbraoi" of each performance echoed the Zeitgeist of the Jazz age and when it foundered on the rocks of the Great Depression the Flanagan Days were numbered. Yet, more than 50 years later, De Dannan, in a defining moment of cultural retrieval brought the Flanagans' With Irish Molly O to another generation.

Green Linnet Records: The 20th Anniversary Collection

GLCD 106-1/106-2, 146 mins

Dial-a-track code: 1751

"File under Celtic/Collections" reads the direction to the retailer on this double CD issued by Green Linnet to celebrate 20 years in the "Celtic music" business. In this context "Celtic" is a term employed to niche market music influenced by or developing out of a mainly but not exclusively Irish traditional music base.

Thus the material on this collection selected from Green Linnet's extensive and growing catalogue. Of the non Irish or Irish American "Celts", there are five Scottish bands, one Galician, two English and one Breton, making up nine of 38 tracks. The rest "straight" Irish traditional, or very bendy Irish traditional music, and everything in between.

Among the 38 tracks there are many outstanding examples across all the genres. It would be a curmudgeon who could not find a couple of tracks to delight his heart, and there is much that will delight many who are like the Green Linnet matriarch herself, Wendy Newton, "into the music".

Out Town, played by Joe Ryan on fiddle and the great Eddie Clarke on mouth organ, and Joe Burke and Charlie Lennon's tight, tidy playing on Master Crowley's/The Jug Of Punch, as are at the far end of the continuum Martin Hayes playing on The Crooked Road/The Foxhunters Reel or Trian's heart stopping virtuosity on The Humours Of Ballyconnell/ Reel Ebowlement/Richie Dwyer's.

Celtic Reflections

Celtic Orchestra

Dolphin DOCDK 109, 51 mins Dial-a-track code: 1861

Why, oh why are the formidable talents of players such as Maire Breatnach, Declan Masterson, and Noreen O'Donoghue squandered on albums like Celtic Reflections?

It looks a tasty concoction, sure enough the ingredients include Slan Le Maigne, Mo Ghile Hear, Ar Broach Na Carraige Baine and so on, but in fact everything sounds the same.

How could A Chriost An Siol sound like, say, Spancil Hill or, stranger still, The Spinning Wheel? With a tidal wave of saccharined keyboards washing over thrumming strings, plinking harp, muted pipes, formulaic little riffs throughout, the lot rendered in a dreamy airport departure lounge acoustic that's how.