Releases > Releases Annual 2026

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MARY-GRACE AUTUMN LEE
Spilling the Tea
Own Label, Single, 3 Minutes, 52 Seconds
www.marygraceautumn.com
Mary-Grace comes from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania where she plays Hammered Dulcimer in the band Seasons. She has been playing professionally for over ten years, and her most recent full album Eyre came out in 2022.
Spilling the Tea is a selection of jigs: The Beach/Pipers of Roguery/Pat McKennas, which was released around the same time as the All Ireland Fleadh in Wexford in 2025, where Mary-Grace placed 3rd in the Miscellaneous Instrument competition.
The track was recorded at John La Vasseur’s Sound Design Studios in Lancaster, PA with Mixing by Billy Sutton at Pipetrack Productions and Mastering by Jason Whelan at The Sound Solution. Both in Newfoundland.
Mary-Grace says on her Bandcamp page: “Spilling the Tea is a term which means to reveal gossip or share secrets… Often, when we spill the tea, we add our exaggerations to make the story more interesting.”
There’s sure to be interest and curiosity aplenty, even gossip, because the Hammered Dulcimer is hardly ever found in a session or band on the Irish side of the Atlantic, yet as Mary-Grace shows, it is nimble and expressive, an ideal vehicle to carry and lift dance tunes, as it does here. The first jig is punctuated by a 1,2,3 beat without losing its forward motion, Mary-Grace being in full control of the hammers in both her hands. The second tune segues smoothly from major to modal, and after a few bars Tony Byrne’s guitar takes up the main melody, devouring the energy that Mary-Grace has fed into the selection before she returns with her hammers in a syncopated blur.
A master work in under four minutes and a marker for more to come. Go on, spill the tea about it.
Seán Laffey

JOHN DEW
Na Caismeachdan
Own Label JDEWCOMP7CD3, 10 Tracks, 49 Minutes
www.johndew-composition.com
A third studio album from this young Perthshire piper and composer, Na Caismeachdan focuses on pipe marches, of which there are many types.
John Dew has been successful in solo competitions and in the pipe band world, and also plays a mean whistle: this recording is half low whistle pieces and half bagpiping (both solos and arrangements) with contributions from Michael Biggins on piano, David Henderson on snare drum, and a string quartet sneaked in on a few tunes. Most of the material here is Dew’s own compositions, although some of these stick so close to the tradition that you’d be hard put to tell them apart from older melodies. There is also a composition by Pipe Major Donald MacLeod MBE, the piobaireachd The Sound of the Sea to end a fine selection.
With many layers to the arrangements here, John Dew makes the most of the low whistle’s sound. He has certainly mastered the instrument, and plays in a warm and engaging style. The tone is quite breathy, but this does not detract from the music significantly. The use of overdubbing also cuts down any gaps for breathing, allowing the tunes to flow.
I am a whistle player, and I can honestly say that I found Na Caismeachdan very enjoyable and musically satisfying. The piping is top notch, as you might expect from a member of Inveraray and District Pipe Band, who have just won their fourth world championship title. Highlights for me were the new retreat marches, two sets here, but I’m sure you’ll find your own favourites.
Alex Monaghan

SHERIDAN RÚITÍN
Freakshow
Own Label, 10 Tracks, 37 Minutes www.sheridanruitin.com
New York’s Sheridan Rúitín can safely say their origins were in a pub, it was in one which band members converted into a garage. A product of post Covid America and the strength of the local scene in New York State, the band have achieved much in a short time, graduating from sessions to gigs and now a fully-fledged touring band.
Their debut album Rebels in the Night showed a tight, focused band with both originality, personality and energy in droves, all necessary ingredients for survival in the highly competitive North American festival and touring circuit. Their second studio album Freakshow displays a continued rise in stature, musical development and commercial bargaining power. The cover features band members dressed as circus performers and Shannon Cokeley as the evocative ring mistress, signifying a call to action. Musically, they stomp and romp with confident swagger and combine their effervescent recapitulations of standards with topflight original material and composite playing.
The title track Freakshow and North Georgia Mountains show their continuing musical evolution, the former’s waltz time evocation of circus life and the latter a poignant reflective ballad where Shannon Cokeley’s vocals shine, and Bad Habit is full-on Celtic Rock/Post Punk Rave up. Melodic rock takes the lead on Scars of Dublin with a contagious hook and memorable chorus. Their take on Brendan Behan’s The Old Triangle begins a-cappella before the ensemble takes it on a laid-back musical swamp ride complete with military side drumming. The Wild Rover offers a delightfully fresh take on the barroom classic. Sean McCarthy’s Red-Haired Mary also receives the Sheridan Rúitín refresher-course in re-interpreting Irish folk classics. Ye Ragg! mixes The Lark in the Morning on bagpipes and some rocking pipe tunes.
A rollicking good time ride, Freakshow is an imaginatively daring and excellent second album.
John O’Regan

FIÁROCK
An Tús
Own Label, 13 Tracks, 45 Minutes www.fiarock.com
Emerging from the multi-cultural sound lab that is the Irish World Academy in University of Limerick, Fiárock is an intriguing collaboration of Irish, American and Mexican musicians.
Individually they are Nicolle Fig (Mexico) on vocals and bodhrán, Irish concertina player Clíona Halley and Darragh Carey-Kennedy on banjo, and pianist Evan Powell from the US. An Tús is their debut album. It is a fresh, bright, and invigorating collection with some interesting aspects on display here, among them a uniformity of sound centred on highlighted passages on concertina, piano, banjo and bodhrán. This creates an individual group identity and avoids the tendency for instrumental overload.
Musically this concentrated line up is not restricting as the four instruments weave through reels, jigs, polkas and airs with composite ease as in Statia Donnelly’s and Sonny’s where intersecting rhythms are delivered with a fresh punch. El Arrancazacate mixes both Irish and Mexican song and tune styles with a pulsating energy. They criss-cross traditional, Celtic and Americana sounds on Old Yeller Dog with a laid-back languor. The vocal tracks include material from the Irish and Mexican traditions that on paper may appear different but arrive at intersections where the result is natural and refined.
Nicolle Fig’s voice threads through varied song traditions with an ease of movement that is both beguiling and aurally attractive. She can inhabit The Verdant Braes of Screen and False Lover John with as much emotional involvement as her native songs like El Arrancazacate and La Llorona. The playing is concentrated and concise with Clíona Halley, Darragh Carey-Kennedy and Evan Powell innovatively upholding the collective’s arrangements.
Fiárock’s An Tús is a fresh creative breeze of originality.
John O’Regan

DEREK WARFIELD and the YOUNG WOLFE TONES
Live at Liberty Hall, Dublin
Warfield Music DWLP002/ DWCD008, 12 Tracks, 66 Minutes
www.theyoungwolfetones.com
This album was recorded over two nights at Dublin’s Liberty Hall during Easter 2025, and it demonstrates how popular the band is, in spite of the reluctance of Irish broadcast media to acknowledge their hugely loyal fanbase. Those shows celebrated the band’s 18th year on the one road, this live recording capturing the close relationship between them and their fans.
Derek Warfield is famous for his unwavering commitment to songs that have lasting historical significance. There are songs here from key moments in Ireland’s struggle for self-determination: the 1916 Rising and subsequent civil war with The Foggy Dew, James Connolly and The Boys of The Old Brigade. Grievances caused by exile and expulsion in the Fields of Athenry. Old battles courageously fought and lamentably lost in The Rising of The Moon, a song born out of the Republican struggle in the Northern British enclave Back Home In Derry. The febrile hope of self-determination won at last (if only partially) in the rousing opener On The One Road.
Generations have written songs to make sense of our history. Songs were not always written contemporary with historical events; Grace was composed by Frank O’Meara and Seán O’Meara 69 years after the execution of Joseph Plunkett.
You can hear how tightly aligned the crowd is with the band’s Nationalist songs. We might wonder are these songs a manifesto for our future? Our present is not the future envisioned by Connolly, Plunkett and Pearse, nor is it the one engineered by De Valera or Bishop McQuaid. Here Derek Warfield and the Young Wolfe Tones sing to keep Republican history alive and un-revisioned in contemporary Ireland; their disciples find much merit in that mission.
The album is available as a CD and double LP as well as on streaming services. The LP will surely become a collector’s item, being the only Irish produced vinyl of the past decade, it was manufactured by Anthem Vinyl in County Kildare.
If you’ve never heard Derek Warfield and The Young Wolfe Tones on the radio, this album will be an ear opener. Their musicianship is excellent, their songs heartfelt and their passion genuine.
Seán Laffey

THE FÓGUES
Golden Vale
Own Label, 16 Tracks, 53 Minutes
www.thefogues.com
The Fógues are cousins Micheál, William and Jack Fogarty along with their friend Ted O’Brien. They are based in North Cork at the foot of the Galtee Mountains, the southern gateway to the Golden Vale, which is the title track and opening number on this collection of newly composed songs and some older less well-known numbers. It is a follow on from their 2020 release Long Nights in Pokey Places, and is the kind of music you’ll hear rocking bars from Cashel to Mitchelstown, a repertoire reflecting a fierce pride in the local, and a great mix of instruments.
Eligible Bachelor showcases the band’s wit and way with a phrase or two, wrapped up in a catchy tune, happy & bouncing. There’s more sideways looks at life in Monday Club Fear and Hens in The Boot. The mood gets romantic on Sweet Black Rose, matching banjo and bass with shades of 1920’s Ragtime, it’s a song of lost love. In The Western Pirate Queen they sing of Gráinne Mhaol, introduced by a Django style guitar lick. More history in the old ballad Remember Mitchelstown, recalling the massacre of the 9th September 1887, when armed police shot 3 Land League protesters in the town’s square:
Now that fight won and our landlords gone
We will thank those gallant men
For their plan of campaign it did not fail
Sure we’ll have our own again
And in that square, I will say a prayer
For the men who were shot down
and the banshees wail, oft told the tale
Remember Mitchelstown
This is rural Ireland and Munster in a nutshell, rebel ballads share a stage with love songs, comical capers and joyous covers. If there’s musical justice in this world The Fógues might well be the next Mary Wallopers. And if you know the Golden Vale, you’ll be on board when the Fógues sing: ‘Every night I close my eyes and find I’m in a dream, Atop the Galtee Mountains admiring all the green.’
Seán Laffey

BRENDAN GRAHAM
The Arrow of Time
Half Door Songs, 11 Tracks, 41 Minutes
www.brendangraham.ie
The Arrow of Time is produced by Feargal Murray, a musician who recently recorded a highly acclaimed album of Brendan Graham’s songs with the current Gradam Ceol winner, Cathy Jordan.
As we went to press, The Arrow of Time was clocking 25,000 monthly listens on Spotify, not bad for a debut album from an 80-year old songwriter. Then again Brendan Graham is anything but your every-day songwriter, he has two Eurovision winning songs in his back pocket; Rock and Roll Kids and The Voice. Both are reprised here with their original artists: Paul Harrington and Charlie McGettigan on the former with Eimear Quinn on The Voice.
Graham’s lyrical excellence is to the fore on You Raise Me Up, a co-write with the pianist Rolf Løvland (who joins Brendan on this track). It was a world-wide hit for Josh Groban and made Graham’s work a global phenomenon. As Brendan narrates the words, the song takes on a liturgical quality, becoming a deeply spiritual Sunday homily.
The final track is: What if There’s no Tomorrow? A question we might ask if we are lucky enough to get to 80. The song is neither melancholy nor nostalgic, not a pause on the shortening road ahead nor a glance over the shoulder to the winding track behind. Brendan is joined by Camille O’Sullivan, it’s an after-hours love affair in a jazz club, a couple grabbing their moment before it evaporates away. On Sleepsong he sings about the gifts he desires for a sleeping child or perhaps a partner? It is a classic lullaby trope, delivered with gentle sincerity over a piano accompaniment. His wishes for the sleeper: ‘May there always be angels to watch over you.’
Brendan Graham can rest easy, his songs already in some cases two generations old, will outlive us all. That’s a happy prospect to lift us up. A line from his song Deepening Silence is a coda to this review: “In the deepening silence I will hold you endlessly, for what was once will always be in the harbour of the heart.”
Seán Laffey

MICHEL BALATTI, TOLA CUSTY & TOM STEARN
The North Wind
Visage Music VM3062, 10 Tracks, 54 Minutes
www.visagemusic.it
It’s been almost ten years since Italian fluter Michel Balatti’s promising debut Northern Breeze album. Since then he’s developed from a gentle Force 1 to a strong Force 3 with the addition of fiddle tornado Tola Custy and a gust of guitar from Tom Stearn.
This recording is a group effort, with flute and fiddle brewing up a storm while Stearn breathes life into three songs as well as providing solid accompaniment to reels, jigs, barndances and more. There’s a dark edge to much of this music: the opening medley of jigs and reels is cheery enough, but the barndance A Few Bob introduces a soulful note and Repeal the Union carries more than its usual air of foreboding. The muted flute and low fiddle on Coleman’s Cross and Johnny “Watt” Henry’s bring us to a pair of silken slow jigs, Liz Kane’s An Pangur Bán and the well-known Pride of Rockchapel, still with that melancholy feel. The songs are similarly downbeat: The Scarecrow weathering life with little comfort, The Ballina Whalers with their tales of blood and broken spars (It’s Ballina Australia not Mayo). A Swedish jig, a Breton An Dro, and an Italian waltz bracket the ballad of loss Shenandoah, putting an eclectic face on the final few tracks here, but the big Ballyconnell set of reels leaves no doubt that this trio can master the mighty old tunes of the Irish tradition.
Intricate arrangements and superb musicianship leave me wanting to listen to The North Wind over and over.
Alex Monaghan

BARRY KERR
Curlew’s Cry
Own Label, 10 Tracks, 39 Minutes
www.barrykerr.com
Connemara based Barry Kerr hails from County Armagh where he rose to prominence as a performer, songwriter and visual artist. He sings and plays guitar & bouzouki on Curlew’s Cry. Joined by multi-instrumentalist Gerry O’Beirne on acoustic guitar, electric guitar, resonator guitar, ukulele, and keyboards, Cathy Jordan adds her vocals and bodhrán whilst Síle Denvir plays keyboard. Pauline Scanlon completes the mix with her backing vocals. The album was engineered by Donogh Hennessy who also plays acoustic guitar.
Barry Kerr has written 7 new songs for this album: The Curlew’s Cry, Three Thousand Rivers Deep, Lullaby For A Lost Child, She Knows Things, Life On The Edge, Mother Earth, and Of Sportsmen Bold. He sings two traditional numbers: The Snows They Melt The Soonest and You Rambling Boys Of Pleasure.
The title track links Kerr with the land and its changing nature; the curlew is in decline, there are less than 150 breeding pairs left on the whole island. Years of drainage and grass “improvement” have sent the species into red-list near-extinction. Our canary in a coal mine is the silent curlew of the bogland. The track starts with a recording of the curlew’s cry and is then overlaid by a mechanical pulse, emphasising the relentless cut of modern agriculture. Kerr sings of what we have lost, and it’s more than a bird, it’s a connection to folklore, a loss of our sense of place and the dissolving of a once mythical, mysterious and often ominous omen of Irish Rural life.
Kerr sets Life On The Edge in an open landscape with drystone walls, piled and placed over hundreds of years, geologic guard rails against livestock wandering and a bulwark against the worst of weather. Those who built the walls scattered far into world, wandered away and longing for a simple life back on the edge. With a similar sentiment Kerr adds gravitas to Grey O’ Beine’s The Holy Ground, a song about returning to a land that was once a childhood home. This track like the rest of the recording is purity personified, every note ringing bell-like.
An album for studied, silent speculation, sensuous and sensitive, profound and pensive, string laden and message rich.
Seán Laffey

GER WOLFE & A CHÁIRDE
Songs From Freeman’s Ballyvourney Collection
RACGCD0014, 12 Tracks, 58 Minutes
www.gerwolfe.com
Ger Wolfe with a cháirde: Kevin Murphy (cello), Mick O’ Brien (pipes/whistles), Paul Frost (bass), Edel Sullivan (fiddle) and Richard Lucey (button accordion). Ger has spent the last 7 years learning the sean-nós song tradition associated with his home place of Macroom. This is an album of 12 songs from the Alexander Martin Freeman collection made in the Gaeltacht of Bailebhúirne during 1913-14. It was published in 1921 in London, and rediscovered 60 years ago by Seán Ó Riada. The ITMA holds the song collection, which amounts to 84 songs with staff notation and a phonetic text, which the ITMA are transcribing into modern Irish.
The album begins with an uilleann pipes intro to An Clár Bog Déal, a Múscraí version collected from Peig ní Dhonnchadha. Ger Wolfe plays a nylon strung guitar here, with the musicians joining him in stages to build a crescendo that matches the love-longing in the song.
Aililiú na Gamhna is next, unaccompanied sean-nós, taken from a woman’s perspective; it is almost a counterbalance to the previous track. A lady tending young calves meets a handsome gentleman, she is sensible enough to reject any May-morning romance. A reminder that cattle were a measure of wealth for centuries in Ireland and the girl knew they’d last longer than kissing time.
The musicians join Ger again on Fannin Geal an Lae, creating a deeply resonant soundscape especially from the fiddle and the bass; it’s much slower and more complex than The Dawning of the Day, which is often fleshed out over its melodic skeleton. It was an old song in Freeman’s collecting days (first published in Edward Walsh’s book ‘Popular Songs of Ireland’ in 1847).
The band shine on Dhochtúir Dílis, a song with only one verse. The flip side is found on Réidh Chnoc Mná Duíbh with a single voice and pipe drones. The album closes with Aisling Gheal; at 8 minutes it is the most substantial sean-nós song on the album. Wolfe’s delivery grows from minimal ornamentation at the outset to a high registered flurry in the final verse, a testament to those seven years of learning that is the solid foundation of Wolfe’s 10th album.
You can hear all the tracks, read the lyrics and see some evocative photographs on Ger Wolfe’s Bandcamp page.
Seán Laffey

THALAS
As It Comes
Trad Records TRAD043, 10 Tracks, 41 Minutes
www.tradrecords.be
Belgian button box master Guus Herremans has a surprisingly light touch on the joyous and upbeat music of this duo with guitarist and pianist Ward Dhoore. I tend to associate the diatonic accordion with strong dark playing, powerful tunes with a deep resonant bass line often in soulful minor keys, but that’s not Thalas. As It Comes is a celebration of creativity, of a year-long collaboration by two hugely experienced musicians, of the joy of making music together. It flows, gently but surely, with the accordion leading most tracks but leaving plenty of space for guitar and other instruments from Ward. The opening We’re Off sets the tone with box and mandolin duets, and a full arrangement backing a lovely lyrical jig.
The soft notes of Tideframe give way to a more urgent beat for Airco is a Lie, a pugnacious low country dance and possibly the most aggressive playing here. The soothing waltz Contra Tu provides a total contrast, while the march-like In Good Company gently ramps up the tempo. Alternating slow and quicker pieces continue with the guitar-led title track, the hop-step of La Vie Saucy (not to be confused with La Vie Sans Saucy), and the languid French-style waltz Josefien.
The final Hideout could almost be a triumphal march if Thalas cranked up the volume, but it remains a gentle stroll in these hands - and perhaps it’s better to preserve the relaxed unhurried feel of As It Comes.
Alex Monaghan

STAFELL SBÂR SAIN
Tŷ Gwerin
Sain Records, 12 Tracks, 52 Minutes
www.sainwales.com
Stafell Sbâr Sain’ series, (Sain’s Spare Room), is a collaborative project by the Welsh record label Sain (Sound) and Tŷ Gwerin (Folk House), the annual Folk Stage at The National Eisteddfod of Wales. It’s a chance to showcase some of the most active and creative folk musicians in Wales today.
That includes veteran band Bob Delyn a’r Ebillion (Every Harp and the Pegs) surely Wales’ most revered Celtic Rock band who absorb influences from Brittany as well as the Principality, often singing in Welsh and Breton. Their track Y Gwynt (The Wind) is filled with a brass section, Welsh bagpipes, bass drum and a saxophone; Irish ears may find a resemblance to Moving Hearts. Bob Delyn a’r Ebillion’s track is perfect for big festival stages and as modern as modern gets.
Things are much more stripped to their essentials on Y Gwylliad from Elin and Carys Gittins, sisters from Montgomeryshire (their father is part of the well-known Welsh folk band Plethyn). Tight sibling harmony over a simple banjo backing, you may know the tune as Ye Jacobites by Name and their song employs a similar technique by punching out repeated phrases. Gwylliad refers to rebels, those to whom (in translation) “Black and white laws cannot kill the truth, kill the truth”.
Singer songwriter The Gentle Good (Gareth Bonello) stands out as a top flight guitarist on Mwyar Duon (Blackberry). His subtle finger-picked guitar and his voice with its huge range is worth exploring if you are looking for inspiration for your own performances.
Things get lively when The Taff Rapids enter track 5, they play bluegrass from Cardiff that sounds like they’d grown up in the Smokey mountains. The song is of course in Welsh, and the chorus could be an Appalachian-German Ooh La La.
With a dozen individual artists on the album, we don’t have the space to laud each one individually, but believe me, all deserve plaudits. You might be tempted to spend hours checking them out on the internet, and I did, and not a minute was wasted. Verdict? There’s no cobwebs in Sain’s spare room.
Seán Laffey

SCOTTISH FISH
Currently
Own Label, 11 Tracks, 54 Minutes
www.scottishfishfiddle.com
Still twenty-somethings, still students some of them, Scottish Fish from the Boston area are now on their second album. The title is as bad a pun as the first one, but these five young ladies have matured and improved their performances to become one of the most entertaining Scottish fiddle acts around. A front line of up to four fiddles backed by piano and cello is not such an unusual look, but an all-female band is still a rarity, and one which can handle both traditional and contemporary material this well is probably unique.
There are a couple of own compositions here: Giulia Haible, Maggie MacPhail and Caroline Dressler have put pen to paper for some catchy reels and jigs, and the charming Butter Fly waltz which is an obvious pair for the similarly-named Irish slipjig. Speaking of Ireland, Currently includes some great Hibernian pieces too: Beóga’s Minute 5 is a punchy contemporary reel, while Maurice Lennon’s Tribute to Larry Reynolds is a joyous piece in more traditional style, which is currently very popular in sessions for good reason.
Add to these a few classic Scottish tunes such as Dhannsamaidh le Ailean and Hamish the Carpenter (even better as a reel than as a joke), plus a Breton an dro with vocal harmonies, and a handful of recent compositions by the likes of Allan MacDonald, Phil Cunningham, Graham Townsend and Neil Pearlman, and this hour of Scottish Fish flies by in a blur of brilliant fiddle music. New England, Ontario, and Cape Breton all add their distinctive flavours before the final Québécois flourish on Fleur de Mandragore. Fresh arrangements, splendid fiddling, and a varied use of piano and cello interludes make this a most enjoyable album.
Alex Monaghan

KAREN MARSHALSAY
Eadarainn a’ Chruit
Cramasie Records CRCD002, 16 Tracks, 64 Minutes
www.karenmarshalsay.bandcamp.com
Between Us the Harp is a great title for this second album from one of Scotland’s foremost harpists. It could refer to the sharing of music, or the closely-related traditions of Celtic harping, or even the harp’s role in preserving tradition. There’s a bit of all those meanings here, as Karen duets with her mentors Alison Kinnaird and Allan MacDonald, dips in and out of the Scots and Irish traditions, and composes new pieces for this ancient instrument.
There are in fact three very different harps at play on Eadarainn a’ Chruit. The Scottish clarsach is perhaps the most familiar, Karen plays a wire-strung version with bell-like tone. Its cousin, the Irish lever harp gives greater chromatic flexibility for modern music, while the little-known bray harp of the Scottish lowlands is a more rhythmic instrument suited to old modal melodies and dances with its staccato sound. I hesitate to call it the banjo of the harp world - but there, I’ve said it now!
With a mix of all these harps, often combined, Marshalsay plucks polkas and planxties, Burns melodies and Baroque dances, Scottish pipe and fiddle pieces, and several tunes from the Irish tradition. Allan MacDonald and Cathal McConnell join Karen for vocal duets on Uamh an Òir and The Valley of Knockanure. Cathal also plays flute, and Kathryn Nicoll’s viola completes the trio for the Irish lament as well as the classic medley of The Gates of the Yellow Town and The Eagle’s Whistle.
A fascinating selection of music with many references to Marshalsay’s long association with Edinburgh, Eadarainn a’ Chruit bears repeated listening.
Alex Monaghan

LE VENT DU NORD
Voisinages
La Compagnie du Nord CIE035, 12 Tracks, 51 Minutes
www.leventdunord.com
This album is everything you’d expect, and more. Epitomising the energetic contemporary folk of Quebec, Le Vent du Nord have been lauded and awarded more times than I can remember. Voisinages is their seventh or eighth recording which it’s been my pleasure to review, and it’s as good as any which went before. Mainly songs in the Québécois style, which means there’s usually a thumping good tune alongside. This CD also includes four great instrumental tracks - five if you include the turlute L’Acadie.
The band has an embarrassment of musical talent: Nicolas Boulerice who writes and leads many of the songs, but also gives a European flavour to the music here with hurdy-gurdy and piano; André Brunet and his brother Réjean who are among the finest fiddlers and accordionists in any tradition; Olivier Demers whose fiddle and mandolin benefit from his encyclopaedic knowledge of French Canadian music; and André Gagné who ties it all together with solid backing on strings and vocals. About half of the material here is drawn from the North American tradition, much of it closely related to Irish and Scottish music, and the rest is newly created. Without the sleevenotes, you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference.
What to highlight? There’s so much good stuff, from the comic-protest song Par-Dessus le Pont with its topical resonance of the punishment for satire directed at the powerful, to the achingly beautiful Fleur Radieuse by André Brunet for his wife. In between are the pastoral Le Canotier as a birch bark canoe navigates the mighty St Lawrence, the warlike Carillon with its tale of blood and British defeat, and that turlute L’Acadie which puts me in mind of the calypso Banana Boat Song. The tunes are equally captivating: jigs and reels, not without their political messages, but also great traditional pieces such as the two by master box-players and prolific composers Réjean Simard and Réjean Lizotte which Réjean Brunet united to form the medley Salut Réjean. I could say more, but it’s better if you discover some of these delights for yourself.
Alex Monaghan

ROBIN ADAMS
The Beggar
Hamework Records HWR003, 9 Tracks, 31 Minutes
www.robinadams.bandcamp.com
The songs on this album were written when Adams was housebound, recovering from a four year period of chronic illness. He has said of this episode: “For a long time I felt completely cut off, unable to gig, see friends or to socialise in any meaningful way due to debilitating fatigue. My writing changed very much at that time.”
Songwriting became his therapy, those songs were rough drafts at first, not meant for publication, then his father died and he reassessed their worth and decided they needed to be refined by sharing and collaborating with other musicians. It was a labour of love, there was no financing, his accomplices giving their time and talent freely.
What we have on the surface of The Beggar is Robin playing guitar and singing the lead vocals. He is joined by a fine group of musicians on cello, violin, drums, harp, clarinet, harmonium, saxophone and backing vocals. Under the surface we discover he is coming from a dark place, as song after song embraces their sombre beginnings; this is an album of shadows not of dancing light.
The Rover sets the tone, a plaintive fiddle cuts in after Adams sings the line: “Black dogs and lonely roads, That’s what the rover chose”. His voice rises to a high pitch on Lost, loneliness is shuttered against a mechanical under-pulse, as if you are driving down an unfamiliar road. He sings, “Now I am lost. The stars do not guide me. They mock me and tell me I’m too far from home.” Harp and cello give a bass grounding to his voice when he sings The Darkness;is this cathartic honesty? “When the body starts to fail, The heart fades, And the eyes pale, In the darkness, In the darkness, I will be.”
The final track Blue Flower Slumber doesn’t resolve the work into sunlit happiness, that would have been a betrayal of the art here. Sometimes songs are not pills to purge melancholy. I hope, however they have helped Robin Adams scour those dark demons from his soul.
Seán Laffey

SEÁN McKEON
Salamanca
Own Label SMk002CD, 13 Tracks, 44 Minutes
www.facebook.com/seanmckeonpipes
Seán McKeon grew up listening to music at home in Dublin, his parents Gay McKeon (uilleann pipes) and Mary Corcoran (fiddle and piano) being his earliest influences. Starting on the whistle at 6, he soon progressed to the uilleann pipes, receiving lessons from Seán Óg Potts. By the age of 15 Seán had amassed a total of 5 Fleadh Ceoil na hÉireann titles and before 18 he had won the senior Oireachtas solo competition.
Seán has performed with Noel Hill, Seán Keane and Steve Cooney as well as forging an exciting duet with fiddle player Liam O’Connor. Seán was honoured to be awarded the 2005 TG4 Young Traditional Musician of the Year. His second album Salamanca follows some years from his first album To the City and the duet effort with Liam O’Connor on Dublin Made Me and being a sideman for Damien Dempsey.
Salamanca is an excellent collection of tunes and uniquely personalised settings. Rendered completely solo, it is musically varied and eclectic in repertoire. His approach is also an exercise in redefinition of both tunes and their interpretation. He takes chances, changes tempi, adds notes and moves the chess pieces of tunes around, spinning them on their melodic axis without interrupting their essential flow and creative whole. His piping is bathed in tradition, yet his interpretation is fresh, bold and daring as seen in the opening reels The Salamanca/Trim the Velvet. His playing copes with the emotional demands of airs like James Connolly and creative couplings like Cad e sin don te sin with The Green Fields of America.
Salamanca is a bold determined effort to build on his reputation and standing. Throughout the course of Salamanca, re-interpretation is the name of the game, and in setting new heights of creative excellence, Seán McKeon succeeds admirably.
John O’Regan

FAIRPORT CONVENTION
Gladys’ Leap 40th Anniversary Edition
Talking Elephant Records, 8 Tracks, 38 Minutes
www.talkingelephant.co.uk
In 1985 a reformed Fairport Convention returned to the recording scene with Gladys’ Leap, their first album of new material since Tipplers Tales in 1978. They returned to a changed world with folk rock now marginalised. However, since splitting up in 1979 their annual Cropredy Convention festival in rural Oxfordshire had proven their pulling power, and the band decided to reform and rebuild its reputation.
Their comeback album Gladys’ Leap (named for a post lady’s shortcut across a stream) was an effort to modernise and rebuild. The days of Sandy Denny and Dave Swarbrick had gone, and now reduced to a trio of Simon Nicol, Dave Pegg and Dave Mattacks, they began their revitalization. Glady’s Leap is the sound of a band finding its feet again with Simon Nicol mostly on vocals assisted by Dave Pegg on Bird from The Mountain. The lean yet spacious tone blended nostalgia and relevance with the then contemporary mechanisation of popular music.
Dave Pegg contributed two original pieces including a bass solo to Instrumental Medley 85 before the traditional Wise Maid recalled their epic Dirty Linen days. Songs from friends like Ralph McTell, Richard Thompson, John Richards and Dave Whetstone contained two future classics, the elegiac pastoral ballad The Girl from the Hiring Fair and the historical epic Watt Tyler. Then there is the buoyant Bird from the Mountain, which suited Dave Pegg’s vocal style well.
Wolverhampton’s John Richards’ Honour and Praise elicited an excellent performance from Simon Nicol. Guests Cathy Lesurf’s My Feet Are Made For Dancing and Richard Thompson’s How Many Times, added to the proceedings, and violinist Ric Sanders made his Fairport studio debut. His introduction with Martin Allcock would revitalise Fairport and begin their new era.
Gladys’ Leap was an auspicious return as is this re-release.
John O’Regan

MIKEY KENNEY
Tiny Little Light
Penny Fiddle Records, 10 Tracks, 44 Minutes
www.mikeykenney.co.uk
Mikey Kenney is a respected fiddle player, singer, songwriter and composer from Liverpool, also a multi-instrumentalist, often performing many of the parts on his recordings on banjo, mandolin, guitar, and melodeon. While highly active in traditional circles he is constantly composing alternative and progressive music of his own with his last two releases Counsel of Owls and The Reverie Road. Now comes his fourth album Tiny Little Light.
Through direct experience, Kenney allows other musical forms such as psychedelia, bluegrass, jazz and Italian tarantella to seep into his music with his deep love for traditional fiddle playing. Tiny Little Light is, except for two instrumentals, a collection of songs written around original fiddle tunes in keeping with traditional forms but progressive in their arrangement and instrumentation. Kenney while playing the instrumental bulk is accompanied by various ensembles including Michael Paul Metcalfe (drums), Awen Blandford (cello) and Andy Raven (guitar).
The title track combines a catchy melody and a mantra like chorus that inhabits the brain quickly. Dandelion offers another low key yet highly attractive sub Waterboys type folk/pop and Cornish Journey features him playing dulictone, a rarely heard instrument. The closing track, almost 10-minutes long is an epic The Dish and the Drain; he takes an experimental direction mixing Kraut-Rock and Qawwali influences on his sleeve. The song is a psychedelic, drone jam over lyrics that feature each verse reflecting on various significant moments in Mikey’s life,  some Robin Williamson–like vocal/fiddle turns behind a Motorik drum beat and a sweeping lyrical monologue. Scarecrow Festival based on a past day out visiting the Scarecrow Festival at Wray in North Lancashire sounds straight from the 70s English folk songbook.
Tiny Little Light is both modern and ancient, the results are peculiarly beguiling in its evocation of the Underground folk ethos.
John O’Regan

WINTER WONDERBAND
Joy Illimited
Own Label, 10 Tracks, Studio CD 64 Minutes, Live CD 31 Minutes
winterwonderbandfolk.com
Around November each year we get a trickle of requests for a suitable folk album for Christmas, and we often scratch our heads thinking of what to recommend. It’s a short window for any band to fill with a new album, so fair play to the Winter Wonderband who have released this double album of seasonal themed music.
Winter Wonderband are Saul Rose on melodeon & vocals, Beth Porter on cello & vocals, Jennifer Crook on harp, guitar & vocals and Maclaine Colston on hammered dulcimer & vocals. The package comes in two parts, a studio album (which I will concentrate on here) and a live recording during the band’s tour last December.
Their music is essentially English, with instrumentation fitting neatly into a Christmas vibe. Maclaine Colston’s hammer dulcimer adding a seasonal shimmer like frost on the snowman’s nose.
The Darkling Thrush alternates between a richly accompanied song and a lone a-cappella voice. The album takes a more robust turn with Shepherds are The Cleverest Lads; the sound here is Elizabethan thanks to a recorder adding the higher notes. There are songs from the well-known seasonal cannon: The Gower Wassail, Soul Cake, which is accompanied by a marimba, and the always eerie Coventry Carol.
Our modern day ‘rush at all costs Christmas’ is critiqued in Slow Down December. Things were not all cakes and ale in olden times either; the song The Gallant Poacher, set to a Morris dance tune, paints a picture of rural poverty and the landlord’s buckshot justice for anyone poaching a rabbit off his field.
The final two tracks are folk versions, firstly of Whams!’s Last Christmas and a reworking of the Pogues’ Fairytale of New York with an English accordion and the hammered dulcimer effecting a carillon to fade the album out.
Seán Laffey

TONE OF VOICE ORCHESTRA
Running from the Devil
Own Label, 10 Tracks, 38 Minutes
https://toneofvoiceorchestra.bandcamp.com/album/running-from-the-devil
Copenhagen based Tone Of Voice Orchestra are vocalists: Elisabeth Vik, Lene Nørgaard, Trinelise Væring and Nanna Schou. Arendse Nordtorp Pedersen plays violins, Fredrik Lundi (saxophone & flutes), Christian Mohr Levisen (Hurdy-gurdy, bagpipes, cittern), Joel Illerhag (double bass), Jesper Uno Kofoed and Knut Finsrud (drums & percussion) and their special guest on Belly Up: Peter Uhrbrand (violin). A large ensemble with a fascinating instruments mix. They sing songs in English, which makes the album accessible to a wide audience.
Those drums and a big hearted female chorus bring a bright start to the album with Tourist At God’s Mercy. There’s a discordant break from the bagpipes before a short a-cappella verse, the lyrics for one verse goes as follows:
Been there done that, Got the T-shirt
Still know nothing about you
I’ve sailed your oceans, Climbed your peaks
Still don’t have a clue, As to who
The song Coming Up for air is a mix of 1940s girl-band vocals with medieval bagpipes shouldering the first verse, before what sounds like a vibraphone adds a jazz ambience to a running “coming up for air” motif. The Hurdy-gurdy is in the spotlight on Dans om Efteraaret (Autumn Dance) with its buzzing back stop over a melee of tangled rhythms. The sound becomes even more left field on Belly Up (Fisken ligger paa hviden sand) the band obviously having a great old time. By way of a complete contrast the final track: Hymn (Lived and Learned) is best described as soft country rock, not a bagpipe nor Hurdy-gurdy within a Donkey’s roar:
I have lived and I’ve learned
Had my fate overturned
Over my shoulders
I’ve seen bridges burn
I have lived and I’ve learned
Modern European folk music that doesn’t take itself too seriously, played with verve and with a big smile on its face. Modern yes, but oh those bagpipes and Hurdy-gurdy make it something else entirely.
Seán Laffey

KYSON POINT
Underwater Sky
Own Label, 10 Tracks, 41 Minutes
www.kysonpoint.com
Kyson Point is UK husband and wife duo Kelly and David Booth. Both are critically acclaimed artists, who have brought their individual songwriting and performance skills together. Built on a foundation of David’s evocative acoustic guitar and Kelly’s lyrical piano, the couple craft contemporary folk music inspired by stories and moods found all around us in the natural world alongside timeless reflections on what it is to be human. The name Kyson Point is taken from a beautiful location on the River Deben in Suffolk, a beautiful watercolour of which by Claudia Myatt graces this album.
The couple both released solo albums in 2023, but Kelly’s Wave Machine (under the name Kelly Bayfield) and David’s All My Days were very much joint efforts in all respects. Underwater Sky is Kyson Point’s first official album as a duo. Playing guitar, mandolin, fiddle, flugelhorn percussion and keyboards between them and using their individual voices and their collective harmonies, the singing is highly recalling UK early 70s folk/soft rock acts like Prelude, Magna Carta and Hudson Ford. Lyrically the romanticism and pastoral elegance of the material places it firmly in the contemporary folk singer-songwriter era, gently shaped by the sounds of London/Laurel Canyon, traditional folk songs, wide-open Suffolk skies and the rugged Pennine hills of David Booth’s upbringing.
Dark River blends a winsome melody and uplifting vocal harmony while My Bonny recalls Eddi Reader in its emotional power and If We Are Houses ups the pop/folk ante melodically and musically. Underwater Sky recalls and updates the Classic UK Contemporary folk style for the new generation.
John O’Regan