Tuath: Reels & Rondo (Independent)
It isn't just the rosary that unites this Limerick family of O Briains: four sisters and a brother on fiddles, flutes, piano and song, with friends on pipes, accordion, concertina, what have you. The initial impact is one of quasi-naivety, but although the virtuosity varies, there's something very vital and solid here; from the strong unison dance tunes, underpinned by Sean's interesting guitar/piano; to the little whip of Irish ornament on songs which go from 11-o'clock-Mass simplicity to very beautifully worked harmonies. Una's highly ornamented whisper is strong on Once I Loved, as is Mairead's stirring recitation and the duet of dance taps and percussion - nice little ear-openers in a gentle, home-made, diverting album.
- Mic Moroney
James W. Flannery: Dear Harp of My Country: The Irish Melodies of Thomas Moore (Sanders & Company/Wolfhound Press)
I first came across this quixotic Irish-American academic directing the W.B. Yeats Coca Cola Festival at the Peacock, but I didn't know he was an effective parlour tenor, who rated Thomas Moore with Wolf and Duparc. There's actually little enough camp to the rolling r's and Hibernian lilt, rather an oddly forthright delicacy, cloaked in the nimble embroidery of Janet Harbison's harp. Set to old Irish airs, Moore's peculiar songs are a moire of Arcadian Romanticism and Irish nationalism borrowed from aislings, or hornier idealisations of the Irish maiden's charms. Flannery's illustrated text maddeningly mixes biog and stuffy criticism, but the music alone is an interesting document, which makes curiously soothing wallpaper.
- Mic Moroney