In honor of yet another rainy day in this Seattle "summer," here's a review of two great new albums from the rainy ol' Emerald Isle of Ireland. One post from Devon @ Hearth Music and a guest post from our good friend Dr. Squeeze. Unfortunately, these albums are a bit hard to find in the US. It's a common problem with Irish trad these days, probably brought on by the dearth of media outlets writing about Irish music and the death of American record stores. Best advice to get new Irish trad releases in the US? Start your own blog. It's not that hard; look at us! If we can do it, you can too!


Kevin Crawford: Carrying the Tune
2012. BallyO Records.

This album has exactly what you'd expect from Kevin Crawford: rare and carefully sourced tunes, impeccable playing on the Irish wooden flute and tin whistles, tasteful accompaniment, and a modern edge to an old sound. Crawford's best known as the Irish fluter in all-star ensemble Lunasa, and though a few tracks here have the kind of angular modern arrangements that made Lunasa one of the best and most in-demand Irish trad bands on the planet, most tracks are subtle, tasteful performances of purely traditional music. Carrying the Tune is an all-flute/whistle album, which can get a bit tiring, but Crawford's one of the few who can pull off an album like this and make every track sound refreshing and different. It helps too that he's got John Doyle on guitar. Doyle's got quite the Midas touch in Irish trad today; everything he touches comes out golden. Together Crawford and Doyle are a formidable duo, and if you're a big fat Irish trad nerd like me, I know you're waiting very impatiently for the album from the new super-group The Teetotallers, which features Crawford and Doyle together with Irish fiddle genius Martin Hayes. But until that drops (and until you start your own blog to get a promo copy), we'll have to content ourselves with this album. Actually, rumor has it that this album was intended to be a Teetotallers album, but schedule conflicts kept Hayes from joining Doyle and Crawford. Anyways, we'll take what we can get, and this is certainly more than we expected! The liner notes here track the source of each tune, and the tunes range the gamut of Irish tune families (including two nice waltzes!), so there's a ton of great material here for the budding Irish musician. And throughout there's such a genuine love for the music that it's hard not to fall in love too. In short, this is the kind of masterful album one would expect from Kevin Crawford. --Devon Leger
 

Kevin Crawford: Queen of May/Tom Dowd's Favourite/Naughton's

 
You can buy the album via PayPal (in Euros) at Kevin Crawford's Website

Séamus Begly & Oisín Mac Diarmada: Le Chéile (Together)
2012. Musical Ireland.

I just got my hands on the recent CD that features the fiddle/accordion team of Séamus Begley and Oisín Mac Diarmada. I recently wrote a review of another recording with Oisín Mac Diarmanda playing with the Innisfree Ceili Band. This time he teams up with the great Kerry accordion player Séamus Begley and they take us on a wild ride of breakneck reels, jigs, hornpipes, and polkas. As an added bonus, Séamus delights us with a few wonderful songs in his masterful Séan-nos style (un-ornamented songs in Gaelic).

It's just the two of them playing on the recording, except for an occasional singing duet with Séamus and his daughter Méabh Ní Bheaglaoich. Séamus comes from an illustrious musical family with a brother who also plays accordion (Brendan Begley). This recording is the result of two years touring with Oisín's troupe of "Irish Christmas in America." The influences, references and tune names on the CD read like a who's who of great Irish musicians: Denis Murphy, Julia Clifford, Ed Reavey, Andy McGann, Michael Coleman for the fiddlers and Finbarr Dwyer, Joe Burke, Johnny O’Leary, and Denis Doody for the box players.

The recording starts of with a set of rollicking slides: "The Scartaglen and Trasna Na dTonnta. This is followed by two reels: Richard Dwyer's and The Hunter's House and then a great song by Séamus: "An tSeanbhean Bhocht" with delightful backup vocals by his daughter. The rest of the CD keeps up the pace and quality with more songs, reels, jigs, hornpipes and polkas. Throughout the recording, we feel the excitement and joy these two great musicians have playing together. It feels at times like two great thoroughbreds on a race to the finish, running neck an neck all the way.

I highly recommend this CD.  --Dr. Squeeze

[Editor's Note: We've just heard that Séamus Begley has officially joined Oisin's awesome Irish trad band, Téada. Congrats all around, we love seeing two generations come together for good tunes and great parties!]

Séamus Begley & Oisín Mac Diarmada: An tSeanbhean Bhocht


Séamus Begley & Oisín Mac Diarmada: The Boys Of Tandragee/The Eavesdropper/Finbarr Dwyer’s