Idir an Da Sholas: Maighread and Triona Ni Dhomhnaill (Hummingbird Records)

The famous sisters from Rannafest show up their "shared blood and rearing" here in the naive, almost schoolroom unison of Nil Se ina La or the light-hearted frog-and-mouse nonsense of Tidy Ann. But they produce far chillier harmonies, and Maighread's rich voice, with that shrill, whipping upper register, remains undiminished (Bruach na Carraige Baine, or the bitter Pill, Pill a Ruin o), while Triona has developed a dark expressionistic style of swelling ornament (Meilte Cheann Dubhrann, or the drowning song, Foireann an Bhaid). There's a gentle groove to Donal Lunny's arrangements O Domhnaill's guitar, Sharon Shannon, harpist Laoise Kelly and piper/whistler John McSherry, but the voices cut through the foliage, and the old songs, many from their aunt Neili, have a bracing edge.

Mic Moroney

The Girls Along the Road: John Kennedy (Veteran Records)

An important little collection of songs, whistle marches and dance tunes, selected mostly from recordings by Drogheda collector, Sean Corcoran, of singer, fife/whistle player and fife-maker John Kennedy (b. 1928), from the rustic Orange heartland of Cullybackey, Co Antrim. The rugged old northern voice judders out a rhythmic emphasis which proves greatly expressive in forlorn ould songs like Glenone; moral depth-charges like The Shipmaster's Wife; and even the hilarious old wheeze, The Missus, her Mother, the Bulldog and Me. The tunes, meanwhile, are deceptively simple and repetitive, and whether hornpipes, reels, jigs or polkas, all have this loping, percussive, Lambeg undertow. But if the music is march-friendly, the songs have a great moral folk-wisdom and snappy wee humour.

Mic Moroney