Small Towns and Famous Nights Blackbox Music***

The robust piano accordion is still a rarity in traditional music, which, in the wrong hands, can suffocate a session unmercifully. Alan Kelly is an agile keeper of this instrument, and his latest album reveals yet another raft of finely matched tune sets, played with delicacy and refinement. Kelly's own compositions are a joy: Hopalongand Kamikaze Pigeonillustrate the levitational powers of his instrument and the merits of restrained accompaniment – Steph Geremia on flute, Tola Custy on fiddle and Tony Byrne on guitar. Geremia's own reading of Birdmakeris an object lesson in gracious playing. But at times the sheer politeness of the arrangements tends to bog them down, and Eddi Reader's guest vocals are frittered away on the maudlin and lumbering Connemara: an embarrassment of sentiment writ large. See alankellygang.com