Releases > Releases November 2024

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DLÙ
Close To
Own Label DRCD001, 9 Tracks, 33 Minutes
www.dluband.com
Mixing Gaelic melodies with rock band arrangements is a tricky business, but this new band from the Glasgow Gaelic community seem to have got it about right. There’s a f emale vocal and a male vocal, lead fiddle and accordion on the instrumentals, and a good mix of dance music with those drippingly miserable Hebridean airs, which can only have come from a North Atlantic climate. Close To is their second album in a scant two years, adding bass guitar to complete the rock band rhythm section of electric guitar and drums, and drafting in Duncan Lyle for some synthesiser sorcery.
After a wee filmic intro, guest singer Joe McCluskey powers into the classic North American Gaelic song Mogaisean , a proven crowd-pleaser, which lends itself to a thumping drum line and wailing guitar backdrop. Gluais and Spicy Hector present tasty fiddle-led jigs and accordion-fuelled reels - the titles may not refer to dodgy Stornoway clubbing habits or brilliant Barra curry cafés, but the music would certainly be welcome in either location. Polarity isn’t quite a strathspey, and Vitamin T isn’t quite a highland schottische, but you could definitely dance to them at a push. The second vocal track features fiddler Moilidh NicGriogair in a ballad of blood and death and despair - as someone once said, that’s the way we do it in the Western Isles!
The final two tracks are more upbeat, a lively piping-style reel with a very dance-hall feel, funky beats building before the climactic rock anthem in Runrig style to close Close To .
Alex Monaghan

THE HARVEY BROTHERS
The Lads of Laois
Own Label, 16 Tracks, 47 Minutes
theharveybrothers.ie
Two lads from Laois playing flute and banjo, Robert and James Harvey are accompanied by Caoimhín Ó Fearghail on guitar, Ryan Molloy on piano and Niall Preston on bodhrán. Older brother Robert is a well-respected academic, his solo album Feochán (the Gentle Breeze) was a dip into tunes from a raft of historic collections and he has brought that same forensic detail to the music on this album. We first encountered James as a fresh faced banjo prodigy at the front of a Meitheal concert in Limerick, he then went on to tour and record with Goitse. On this album you’ll hear how he has blossomed into a virtuoso banjo player.
The Harveys present music from County Laois and its environs, combining tunes by composers Sean Ryan, John Brady, Jerry O’Sullivan, Robert Gleeson, and Joe Keegan with three by James and a few from local musicians and tradition bearers. I had no idea that some of my favourite Irish pieces were from Laois: The Reel of Sceahóg , The Jig of Clonmore , Ballyfin Lake and more.
There’s a quare way of naming some of these tunes, but there’s also a great sense of humour about them. Our Lady’s Bungalow gets a solo flute treatment, a reel celebrating the National School built opposite Sean Ryan’s house in Rosenallis, and The Emo University is a piece by US-based piper Jerry O’Sullivan named for his grandmother’s primary school in the village of Emo.
Robert and James rattle off this and many other fine tunes, giving more space to the fine lament Farewell to Father Newman by John Brady and a waltz by James, which is beautifully played on banjo and low whistle. James switches to mandolin on two tracks, and there’s a whistle duet on a pair of old slides, so variety is never lacking. One gets the feeling that there’s been sibling synergy at work here for many many years.
The CD was recorded at Roundwood House in July 2023, produced by Laoise O’Brien and engineered by Grammy Award winner Ben Rawlins. If you are looking to ex pand your repertoire, The Lad of Laois offers a new horizon. The Harvey Brothers’ music is always top notch, and with some little known tunes sources from a local tradition that has been hidden for far too long, this album is a major discovery.
Alex Monaghan

OISÍN MAC DIARMADA, DAITHÍ GORMLEY, SAMANTHA HARVEY
Lane To The Glen
Ceol Productions, 13 Tracks, 41 Minutes
www.oisinmacdiarmada.com
From the get go, you know this is going to be good. The trio’s tunes are carefully chosen, are played with utter respect, each is given a fresh coat of paint, and they dance in the sunlight.
Their opening salvo is a pair of tunes, starting with a Charlie Lennon composition The Melvin Wave , the second an Ed Reavy melody The Lane to The Glen . These set the tone of the album with a sound that harks back to the heyday of the big dance hall of 1920s Irish America. It’s not a pastiche from Oisín’s fiddle or Daithí’s accordion, it’s in the DNA of the tunes themselves. Those tunes have a provenance from Sligo and Connacht in the most part, that undefinable quality of lift and swing. Catch its essence on a set of barn dances: Gráinne Mhaol and Malloy’s Favourite.
As you would expect from anything Oisín turns his hand to, the liner notes are succinct yet full of studied details. He tells us that the jig Galloping Hogan appears in the 1912 Roche collection and was recorded in 1987 on The Fort of Kincora by Martin Connolly and Maureen Glyn. That kind of background whets our appetite for more.
Back to the tunes themselves; Oisín demonstrates a consummate command of reels on Crotty’s Glory , he glides easily into the tune and follows it with Reel No. 295 , from the P.W. Joyce collection of 1909 - it was a favourite of The Lad O’Beirne’s. Track 6 is a set of reels from Gormley, The Dogs Amongst the Bushes and two Paddy Gavin tunes, which he had from the playing of Joe Burke. Lavish and steady, they are a tour de force of box playing, and the backing is so good I’ll make a note of it in the next paragraph.
Now that moment to applaud the backing from Samantha Harvey. It is of the highest order, her piano playing follows the contours of the tunes. There is no reversion to staccato heavy handed vamping, no dogeared showboating. She brings a sensitivity to Mac Diarmada’s and Gormley’s playing that reminds me of the synergy between Hayes and Cahill. If you back tunes, no matter what instrument you choose, this album is a masterclass in how to get it right.
One enthusiast online suggested you’d be hard pushed to find a better traditional album this year, and I would echo that sentiment wholeheartedly. The bar has been set very high.
Seán Laffey

NIALL HANNA
The Roving Journeyman
Own Label, 11 Tracks, 45 Minutes www.niallhanna.com
Niall Hanna is a scion of a famous singing family (his grandfather was Geordie Hanna). This is the second album of traditional and newly composed folk songs from Niall. His pre-covid debut album Autumn Winds (2018) was nominated for Best Original Track at the RTÉ Folk Awards in October 2018. And in my opinion The Roving Journeyman surpasses even that impressive milestone.
He is joined here by some of the finest professional players to have emerged in the North this century: Damian McKee, Liam Bradley, Rachel McGarrity and Niall’s brother Ciaran Hanna.
Niall lays down an impressive marker with the title track (the tune is The Little Beggar Man ); there’s drama in the telling, light and shade in the playing and a dynamic propulsion in the song. That is one of six traditional tracks, the five others are penned by Hanna and you’d be hard pushed to be convinced they are so new. He began writing those songs in 2020: The Collier McQuaid sounds like it could have been around for 100 years, equally Farewell My Native Country fits snugly into the canon of emigration songs. Fremantl e Jail with it backbeat guitar riff tells the remarkable story of the Fenian rescue by the Catalpa whaling ship in April 1876 .
The final track The Wee Weaver , is a traditional song with a very modern arrangement with Hanna’s voice soaring above the complex interplay of instruments. It’s hard to pick a favourite track - this is an album full of earworms. Comparisons will be made with the young Paul Brady or the sonic sweep of Jarlath Henderson, and in tone and attitude he is in the same premier league as Damien O’Kane. Comparisons are in themselves but simple signposts. Niall Hanna is his own man and The Roving Journeyman is his masterpiece of modern Irish folk song.
Seán Laffey

ALANNA JENISH
Daleview
Own Label, 10 Tracks, 36 Minutes
www.alannajenishmusic.com
Peterborough, Ontario is turning into a bit of a focus for Canadian Celtic music, and this very fine second album from young fiddler and multi-instrumentalist Alanna Jenish is another milestone, its title honouring the local community.
On first listening I assumed most of Daleview was traditional, but in fact ten of the fourteen pieces here are Alanna’s own: reels, jigs, and slower numbers, all fine additions to the fiddle repertoire. Pinning down the style of this music is a challenge: Shoot the Moon sounds distinctly Irish, while Charlotte Street leans towards the Cape Breton home of the Jerry Holland jig it’s paired with here. The charming Rockwood shares the Irish serenity of Jenish’s lovely version of Tabhair dom do Lámh , an ancient harp tune. Two Weeks and a Day shows more of the Scots connection, but Second Home reminds me strongly of Seán Smyth’s fiddling with a Connemara lilt, which also suits Alanna’s take on the old Irish reel The Earl’s Chair . Snow on the Mountain is a powerful contemporary air admitting no particular allegiance to any one tradition, while Wicklow Court Waltz and the final guitar-led Reel 25 have that Canadian swing about them: not quite Country, but not quite Celtic either.
As you might expect from a Canadian album, there are several excellent guests here, adding accordion, flute, bass, fiddle, guitar and piano to Alanna Jenish’s own skills on fiddle, viola, mandolin piano and guitar. The sleeve notes specify who plays what when, but don’t give much else away. No matter, Daleview has its own voice and needs no explanation.
Alex Monaghan

A.D.A.M (MAIREARAD GREEN & MIKE VASS)
Everybody Wants to Be Like Mary
Own Label, 9 Tracks, 52 Minutes
www.adamsounds.com
Billing themselves as A.D.A.M, Green and Vass have spent a day a month on this project, recording traditional tunes with a contemporary sound. Nine tracks of pipes, fiddle and keys are arranged with full electronic effects, rock band synth sounds and various electronic shenanigans to produce pleasant surprises and pumping dance music by turns. Think Moxie, Niteworks, Chilli Pipers, Rare Air, and all those fiddle-led or pipes-led rock bands from Malin Head to Milwaukee.
The opening two numbers are in your face, loud, bass-heavy crowd-pleasers, but there are moments of calm beauty on OGA , ‘S_ and other intriguingly-named tracks here. I suspect that the track titles are a shorthand for the traditional melodies in each medley - an extreme form of on-stage notes. The whole package is very minimalist - hand-written sleeve notes, a deliberately rough cover picture, and no information on individual tracks, but the music itself is intriguing, oddly compelling, raw and mysterious simultaneously.
The smallpipes air LAT raises the hairs on your neck, the jig beat of DHE masks a mouth music melody, the trippy club sound of AN_ is a head-spinner, and the final UAM peters out like the afterparty from a winter festival gig. I would have finished Everybody Wants to Be Like Mary on a more upbeat note, maybe moved MAR to final position - but that’s the beauty of today’s albums, you can chop and change the order as you wish.
Everybody Wants to Be Like Mary is currently available as a double LP - vinyl for the youngsters.
Alex Monaghan

MORAG BROWN & LEWIS POWELL-REID
Auld Springs New
Own Label MBLPR01, 11 Tracks, 52 Minutes
www.moragandlewis.weebly.com
A young but extremely experienced instrumental duo from southern Scotland, Morag and Lewis play fiddle and guitar, as well as cittern, bouzouki and piano accordion. The fiddle leads on tunes from all over Scotland and Northumberland, with the accordion and bouzouki taking point on French and Balkan pieces. This debut CD is evenly split between the two genres, and a couple of Powell-Reid compositions knit these different worlds together.
The opening Tide Time is a quite contemporary number, notes like running water, rhythms describing both the urgency of the waves and the implacable rise and fall of the sea. Kiss’d Her Under the Coverlet is the first of many eighteenth century tunes and older - the Auld Springs of the CD title - played with Morag’s powerful Scots fiddle strokes.
Vas-Y Mimile (loosely translated into Scots as “Gwan yersel hen”) brings a different vibe to the party, a French waltz with a balfolk feel: the Balkan dances Midwinter Makedonska and Kemenska , and Lewis’ Klezmer creation Miss Taylor’s Delight also fit into the pan-European genre as does the penultimate Scottische à Yann . A guitar melody introduces The Knockie Set in a style similar to Renaissance lute music, followed by a medley of Gaelic melodies collected in the early 1700s. Brown and Powell-Reid follow up with an old Aberdeenshire air and jig, plus a pibroch arranged for fiddle in the 1700s.  All this music is given a new lease of life with barely a flicker on fiddle and accordion with accompaniment steady or spirited to suit.
A lively interpretation of Go to Berwick Johnny and a funky old Shetland reel get the blood pumping before the final Gaelic air An Carn Gorm concludes this varied and captivating collection.
Alex Monaghan

DAVID GRUBB
Circadia
Own Label SUD003, 17 Tracks, 54 Minutes
https://davidgrubb.co.uk/
With two outstanding CDs to his name already, this Scottish violinist and fiddler has now settled in Wales and by pure coincidence his third album focuses on sleepiness. Circadia is a big body of work, a concept album inspired by what our brains get up to when we’re not paying attention. It runs through a typical sleep cycle, from the rhythmic and at times monotonous Daily Grind through the soothing Eigengrau of falling asleep, different levels of consciousness and awareness in Slow Wave and The Somnambulist , to the frantic whirl and confusing rhythms of Nightmare . Each track is perfectly arranged and executed by a band of seven musicians, who combine the best of traditional and classical, rock and contemporary styles. It’s mostly acoustic but with several touches of electric and electronic music.
Traditionalists might want to ease their way into Grubb’s dreamworld through Lucid , a gentle clarinet line overlaid with some punchy fiddling which gives way to a sort of slow rocking reel. Try the easy-going jig beat of Light the Torch , eyes opening on the world again. After that, you might be ready for the weirdness of Dream Speak with its booming bass clarinet notes, or the straightforward rock and roll of Hypnopompia as all your systems fire up again to prepare for a new day, or even the alarming Exploding Tetris with its buzzing melody and rhythmic surprises.
It’s all good though, and there’s a return to conscious normality in the final smooth Continuum . A good forty winks, almost an hour of refreshing and engaging music, and if Circadia rocks you to sleep so much the better!
Alex Monaghan

OLD MAN FLANAGAN’S GHOST
Simple Little Boat
Own Label, 12 Tracks, 41 Minutes
www.oldmanflanagansghost.com
This is another Celtic-folk-rock album from Toronto based Old Man Flanagan’s Ghost, who are: Stephen Lamb (guitar, vocals), Matti Palonen (whistle, vocals), Bexy Ashworth (fiddle, vocals) and Scot Allan (vocals). They present a mixture of sensitive songs and good time barrel house music. The album is peppered with newly composed ballads, often telling true tales in strident fashion, ergo the opening All Ships Away , an electric bass, a full drum kit, highland pipes spanning the bridge between the verses; the effect is not dissimilar to a Breton Andro. It is an unashamedly stirring beginning.
In complete contrast the next track and the title song, Simple Little Boat , is a gentle folk number with whistle and Americana fiddle backing the repeated phrase: “Just a Simple Little Boat floating round your castle moat.” They turn a bar room Romeo’s rejection into a pub-roustabout in Hell No . I suspect this is terrific fun on a live stage. They keep that pace up on Nelson’s Blood , a new song, not the well-known sea shanty. Again they give it the full Celtic bar-rock-Monty.
There’s a magical hand behind this album, the wizard is their producer: Murray Foster, who played bass in arguably Newfoundland’s most successful Celtic Rock band of all time, Great Big Sea. He’s found kindred spirts in Old Man Flanagan’s Ghost, from the earthy no-frills-allowed songwriting of lead singer Stephen Lamb, to the core members of the band augmented by a slew of fine guest players. There are some magically gentle numbers here, notably Hand in Hand and Small Town , each touched by nostalgia and a shared sentimental aching for old times and old places.
If you are looking to expand your own repertoire, there’s treasure in the hold of this Simple Little Boat . And if you are looking for an alternative chorus to get your crowd swaying with their lighted smartphones, raise a glass to the band’ s Pass The Pint.
Seán Laffey

JC STEWART
BT45
Stanley Park Records, Single, 4 Minutes
www.iamjcstewart.com
The song title refers to the British Post office code for JC’s home of Magherafelt County Derry. Those UK postcodes are older than Irish Eircodes and are less precise, which works in this context, because here Stewart explores the nature of exile from the home place. In the accompanying PR that came with the press download, Stewart says: “There’s a beauty and enchantment in Mid-Ulster that I have never been able to replicate anywhere else.”
BT45 is a song about modern exile, leaving behind a world that has shrunk from Craigie Hills to the sound of cars passing by your window and the posters on your bedroom wall. Exile of course can be an edgy freedom as you begin flying from the parental nest and start making your own way in the world. JC Stewart has done this for real, moved to London, the mega city, where everything and nothing is possible. He’s been successful, he’s filled venues and toured with Lewis Capaldi and created songs with Niall Horan. Then he came back home to the Derry farm and immersed himself in songwriting, discovering that simplicity is its strength. There is a tell-tale sting, the bitter herb of the self-imposed exile resounds in the closing echo of the last chorus:
But I know I left my heart in Ireland
Where my people still reside
There in that house below the hill
Where I grew up, Where I wish I was still
Oh, what I’d give to be there tonight
John Callum Stewart proves songs of displacement are not old hat, they are a code for the human angst of loss and a hope of returning. And when you are back home, that exile colours your every view. BT45 is a code that’s there for cracking.
Seán Laffey