www.cranmusic.com

A mere 12 years since the release of Music from the Edge of the World, musical Jedi Knights CRAN strode fearlessly into the studio this spring of 2014. They stumbled back out a fortnight later, exhausted and bleary–eyed but content, grasping the master CD of Dally and Stray – the 5th in their series of white–knuckle musical adventures which began in 1993 with the cult CD The Crooked Stair.

On this outing, their adventure spoils include such gems as northern songs Next Market Day, The Forger’s Farewell & Tá Mé ‘Mo Shuí, a clapping song from the Scottish waulking song tradition O Cò Bheir Mi Leam and interestingly, the first modern–day recordings of two songs collected by Patrick Lynch and Edward Bunting around 1800: Tú Fhéin is Mé Fhéin & Giolla na Scríob which both display an open non–salacious attitude to sexual matters uncommon even now in our so–called modern liberal society!

As ever with CRAN, the melodic material on this CD is no less interesting – haunting slow airs Úna Bhán & Barbara Allen, ancient marches Hunt the Squirrel & Drocketty’s, perky single jigs Ask my Father & Pat Ward’s, the rousing Knockaboul single reel and the pipes ‘piece’ The Humours of Glin along with electrifying jigs and reels. As with their previous 4 CD’s, Dally and Stray displays copious amounts of the 3 W’s: Warmth, Wit and Wonder…!

Distributed by Claddagh Records, it is available on www.cranmusic.com and can be downloaded from iTunes, Spotify & Amazon etc.