Tony McMahon: McMahon From Clare (Independent)

Now in semi-retirement from RTE, the big man exposes many brimful, shivery, big airs here, such as Caoineadh Eoghain Rua or Amhran na Leabhar, while dance tunes feature the violent, squirting bellows and head-dithering ould stomp of duets with Seamus Connolly, or thrashed out with old mate Barney McKenna. Retrospectively, he revisits old recordings with James Kelly, Sean O Riada, Peadar Mercier, or indeed the great Joe Cooley weeks before the man expired in 1972. Throughout, this is head-on, slamming music which you simply can't ignore, and even without the fragrant sleeve notes, the fresh, bracing air of the old music comes straight up out of the grave at you.

Oisin Mac Diarmada, Brian Fitzgerald & Micheal O Ruanaigh: Traditional Music on Fiddle, Banjo & Harp (Clo Iar-Chonnachta)

In a world gone mad, these guys produce a remarkably aisy, vital recording from very different strings: Mac Diarmada's sidestepping fiddle, which took a Senior All-Ireland last year; Fitzgerald, who won his banjo heats in 1997; and the beatific new Senior Examiner, the Monaghan harper Michael Rooney. More interested in slow nuances than rockified play-acting, they re-sedate oft-adrenalised tunes like The Humours of Kilclogher. Fitzgerald executes a laid-back Munster Grass, MacDiarmada cuts old-style mischief from polkas and a Tommy Peoples jig, while Rooney daintily twinkles a Begley-coloured air of his own, his harp constantly jewelling the mix with a swoony ould lilt. How were young men e'er reared so well-adjusted?