play the tune, totally together all the way.


Chosen from Dave Swarbrick’s personal archive, the CD provides a glimpse of their playing in the first half of the 90s. I hope there’s more to come.


Graham Gurrin COLIN FARRELL


On The Move Private Label CFCD0012


Kelly, Tony Byrne, Donald Shaw and Ewen Vernal to name but a few.


This is a nicely chilled out and relaxed collection of well written tunes, played, arranged and produced in an interesting, contemporary style. Nothing hell for leather here but something which I could listen to over and over again – an album which sneaks up and grabs you the more you listen to it.


Jim Byrne


NORTHERN LIGHTS Dubh Agus Geal – Darkness And Light


Private Label LMM011001


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What is it about Manchester these days that seems to breed ultra-talented musicians? Colin Farrell is yet another to come out of the same stable that gave us Mike McGoldrick, John Joe Kelly, Dezi Donnelly, etc. Colin, in this debut recording, gives us some fine tunes - all but two of them self-penned. Rhythmic, diverse and innovative arrangements lift, augment and swing the tunes in different directions giving the album a very modern but chilled out feel.


Colin is a very accomplished fiddle and whistle player and this is well demonstrated throughout the album as he interchanges and overlays the instruments with precision and aplomb.


Overall, the tunes stand well on their own merits but there are a few gems thrown in here and there as well - check out Soho South, Bridge Street, Tabla Jigs and Lough Guitane amongst others.


The initial thought is that this sounds like a Michael McGoldrick album – not a bad comparison in anybody’s book - indeed, the great man himself taught Colin to play whistle, co-produced the album and plays on a number of the tracks so there is no doubting the influence he has had on the overall sound and production values


Much of the underlying accompaniment I would describe as “McGoldrick” style with brass, 5 string banjo, tablas, drums and synth supplementing the more usual instrumental backings. There is also a bit of almost tongue in cheek looping and sampling going on here and there too, just to prove that inspiration for traditional style music can come from anywhere!


A who’s who of musicians ably aid and abet Colin throughout – Mike McGoldrick, John Joe


Sponsored by BIrnam CD


Lorcán MacMathúna, from Cork, is an excellent young sean-nós singer whose work I first encountered three years ago on his intense CD Rógaire Dubh. Here he unveils the first release of his ambitious ongoing Northern Lights project, which traces similarities in Irish and Scandinavian traditional music by means of what Lorcán terms “explorations of Gaelic-Norse folk roots”. That description might betoken a musical approach that’s vaguely trendy or else drily academic, but this intriguing disc is in fact neither, instead being a brilliantly listenable and stimulating musical experience.


In many ways it’s a natural continuation of what we encountered on Rógaire Dubh, where maximum impact is gained by the compelling and evocative vocalising of Lorcán himself and principal collaborator Raphael De Cock, cradled within opulent yet lucidly conceived textures that, while often sparsely-stranded, embody a bleakness that never lacks warmth, one which though invariably transparent remains highly telling.


Lorcán’s central thesis, expounded in the essay hectically crammed onto the inside first page of the admirably informative and voluminous accompanying booklet, is that folk music is part of the collective consciousness and experience rather than a single person’s story, and this is aptly demonstrated by his open-hearted sharing of modes and idioms familiar from traditional Irish and Scandinavian musics, which are performed in parallel and in empathic union on the same musical stage, as it were.


bE sEEn


bE hEard 1986


EstablishEd 01350 727 158 www.birnamcd.com The Living Tradition - Page 41


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