DÓNAL MURPHY
Happy Hour No label★★★★

If ever there was an able successor to Seamus Begley and Steve Cooney's groundbreaking 1996CD Meitheal, Happy Houris it. Abbeyfeale box player Dónal Murphy applies the finest of brush strokes to a mix of tunes, and it's not only his slides and polkas that burst forth with great gusto here, but reels, jigs and hornpipes, too: like a rake of unruly school kids spilling out of a musty classroom and into a sun-drenched playground.

A veteran of both Four Men and a Dogand Sliabh Notes, Murphy's smart move on this, his debut solo recording, was to partner with guitarist Steve Cooney for half of the tracks, and then swap, calling in the services of Kent guitarist Tim Edey for the rest of the tunes.

Cooney alternates his trademark propulsive percussive style with delicate harmonic variations, particularly on Murphy's evocative reading of the slow air, Caoineadh Uí Dhomhnaill. Edey, on the other hand, brings equally spectacular fingerwork and an idiosyncratic appreciation of the bass line that anchors much, including the surprise treat: Hale's Rag, an American old-time rag tune that Murphy releases into the atmosphere with brio.

The discipline of the jig set King Of The Pipers(bookended by Murphy's sole original tune, the effervescent Valentia Jig) is balanced by the sheer freedom of the final set of reels. On
this lively knees-up, three generations of the Murphy clan bask in the mix of box, fiddle
and flute.

Happy Houris a snapshot of a musician still hungering to explore the most visceral elements of the music – which he does with technical brilliance and emotional warmth. www.donalmurphy.net

Download tracks: Caoineadh Uí Dhomhnaill, Hale's Rag