Releases > Releases July 2025

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CEÓL SA CHISTIN MAUREEN MINOGUE BROWNE
Own Label, 20 Tracks, 46 Minutes
www.banjo.ie
This is a remarkable album of traditional Irish music, it brings to the public forum a series of private recordings made over fifty years ago in London. A result of passion for tunes, the generosity of Maureen Minogue Browne and the serendipity of Tom Cussen finding himself in London during one of the most exciting eras of traditional music in the city.
In 1969 Tom Cussen had left Galway for a spell in London, where he bought a banjo in a pawn shop and went along to as many sessions as he could. Crucially he also had a good quality tape recorder. At a session in Kentish town he met Maureen and asked if he could record some of her tunes so he could learn to play them.
Maureen was a founding member of the Shaskeen Céilí Band and also played for dances at the famous Galtymore in Cricklewood. She came back to Ireland in 1990, and continued to play and teach traditional music. She never made a commercial recording and this album is Tom’s gift of gratitude for a lady who got him going on the right road.
Many of the tracks here have been augmented by the magic of Paul Mulligan who engineered the album. Mary McMahon adds the piano, Alan Wallace the guitar and Johnny Donnellan plays bodhrán, turning what are essentially field recordings into polished modern pieces. What struck me was not only Maureen’s technique but her command of tempo. Given that the core of each track was recorded at her kitchen table, she is always on the beat but never strapped to it, which must have made adding the modern layers to the bare bones a very enjoyable experience.
With over 20 tunes on the album, they would make a great selection for anyone wishing to enhance their own session, tunes such us the jig Knoacknagow, an early version of the Wise Maid, reels The Four Courts and The Old Copperplate, and a couple of hornpipes including The Flowing Tide. All top shelf tunes. And the final track sounds like it could have come out of a session in the Favourite, Farewell to Ireland, an echo of a time when London was the hot centre of Irish traditional music. This is where Shaskeen got a start and from that good grounding, Tom and the band are still making quality music today.
Seán Laffey

NIALL McCABE
Stranger
Decca Records, 10 Tracks, 43 Minutes www.niallmccabe.com
Niall McCabe’s music reflects his upbringing on Clare Island, off the coast of Co. Mayo, where he was raised surrounded by music as his family ran a pub there. He was exposed to a range of musical influences from an early age, spanning traditional, folk, rock and soul as well as other genres. He has crafted all his life experiences into a deeply personal musical style, and his debut album Rituals was widely acclaimed for its remarkably mature original compositions, delivered with a voice that oozes authenticity and commitment.
Stranger is his latest album, and it’s clear that he’s progressed even further in the quality of his performance and writing; the sound production is in the capable hands of Sean Óg Graham, and the instrumentation is carefully crafted to envelop the songs, with pedal steel among the textures, side by side with Irish staples such as fiddle, accordion and pipes. The end result is almost cinematic in its delivery, embracing the listener with its lush yet understated soundscapes.
Niall’s voice is rich and full, drawing comparisons with Paul Brady and Van Morrison; this is most noticeable on an up-tempo song such as Darker Love (already released as a single), but the majority of the material is relaxed and introspective, drawing in the listener with lyrics that invite attention, and demands repeated plays for the full meaning to be appreciated. Crescendo and Valentine’s Day 1981 reflect the more contemplative side of McCabe’s writing, the former building from a simple guitar and voice intro to a beautiful string arrangement with a nice whistle figure augmenting the vocal, the latter reflecting on parallel events with gorgeous strings from Niamh Dunne. His latest single I’m Wrong closes the album, another slow ballad highlighting his heartfelt vocals.
Overall, it’s a beautifully crafted recording which will enhance Niall’s reputation as a songwriter and performer.
Mark Lysaght

BRÍD O’GORMAN
The Idle Road
Own Label, 13 Tracks, 53 Minutes
www.bridogorman.com
It has been nine years since the last album from Bríd O’Gorman and the wait has been well worth it. Her flute playing comes from a deep vein of traditional music in Clare and there’s an easy going lyricism in her playing, especially on jigs. The liner notes, which can be read in full on her Bandcamp page, are full of interesting detail as to sources of tunes and their composers.
She has gathered a number of friends here, long-time collaborator, the bouzouki player Eoin O’Neill and a bevy of family members, indicative of the intergenerational health of the tradition in County Clare.
She opens on D flute with a selection of 3 jigs: The Cliffs of Moher, The Little Black Pig & The Piper’s Chair, accompanied by Michael Landers’ guitar adding a bass undercurrent. The first tune  she had from a recording of Micho Russell. The man who put Doolin on the map.  The album’s title comes from the second tune of track 5, which follows Junior Crehan’s The Mist Covered Mountain. Bríd plays these on the C flute, which gives them a mellow and dreamy character. Auldyn River is a family ensemble piece with Bríd (D flute), Diarmuid (mandolin), Gearóid (fiddle), Síomha (harp). The tune is a relatively new waltz by Paul Cringle from the Isle of Man.
Bríd takes a break on track 10 with two jigs The Seanamhac Tube Station & The Reaper in the capable hands of Diarmuid (banjo) & Eoin O’Neill on bouzouki. Her final track, making up the baker’s dozen is an ensemble piece, reels played in céilí band fashion: Lady Anne Montgomery, Maud Miller & Molloy’s Favourite; they are impeccably paced for dancing. Well, that’s the way in Clare, all heart and no rush.
If you are a devotee of the Irish flute, this album will provide you with years of inspiration. If you love Clare music, well, you’ll love this album.
Seán Laffey

TOLÜ MAKAY
War
Own Label, Single, 3 Minutes, 40 Seconds
www.tolumakayofficial.com
Irish-Nigerian singer Tolü Makay came into the national consciousness when she re-interpreted the Saw Doctors’ N17 with the RTÉ concert Orchestra in their New Year’s Eve broadcast in 2020. She says: “WAR began as a poem. I had just returned from a gathering at the London Irish Centre, where women shared stories of how Sinéad O’Connor gave voice to the voiceless, often at great personal cost. That night, overwhelmed by emotion and collective grief, I found myself reflecting deeply.”
War is very much central to today’s zeitgeist, something we are all living through now, whether we realise it or not. War is only ever justified by the powerful whilst the collateral damage is suffered by the innocent, the powerless and the marginalised. Tolü’s message comes with a suit of haute couture pop clothes, the song itself would make a better and braver Eurovision entry than anything we’ve heard from Ireland of late.
Here is her chorus:
There’s a war outside
Why do we choose not to hear it
It’s been cold for so long
Why don’t we believe it
The fourth wall has been broken
Only fools want to restore it
There’s a war outside
Why do we choose not to hear it
War. War. War.
Sadly, I think songs won’t make a difference to modern warfare; we live in harsher times than when Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan and Donovan sang about conflict and the youth of their day responded. Today there is unlikely to be a draft, and you can do as much damage sitting in an office chair piloting a remote drone as you can with a platoon. And that’s at the nub of Tolü’s song, war is ignorable because it happens to someone else, to some other innocent victims, in some other place, where they have no voice to protest, and that’s why songs have a duty to make a mark.
Seán Laffey

ODETTE MICHELL
The Queen of the Lowlands
Talking Elephant Records, 10 Tracks, 41 Minutes
www.odettemichell.com
A new album from English singer songwriter Odette Michell has pedigree, produced by Stu Hanna (Megson) and with fiddle on the title track being recorded at Woodworm Studios in Oxfordshire where Fairport Convention made all their albums. Odette is joined by UK folk aristocrats Phil Beer (fiddle on Requiem) and Chris Leslie (fiddle on The Queen of The Lowlands). The other guests are: Stu Hanna on production, fiddle, mandolin, percussion and backing vocals, the duo Ninebarrow who add vocals on The Woodlark & the Fieldfare, Calum Gilligan sings on Hourglass and Vicki Swan plays Scottish smallpipes on Requiem. Lukas Drinkwater adds his double bass to St Helens  and Daria Kulesh sings on the ballad Flowers.
Together they make modern folk songs that sound like they have been with us for two centuries, such is Michell’s command of folk phrasing. She has Irish roots, and they surface on St. Helens, the story of her great grandmother who found herself a single mother and Irish immigrant in the industrial north of England in the 1850s. Lady Constance is about a woman from the other end of the social spectrum, Constance Markievicz, Irish politician and revolutionary, the first woman elected to the Westminster House of Commons, who gave all her wealth away. She died penniless but was loved by millions of Irish people the world over.
The title track is about the requisitioning of a Dutch liner by the American military in 1918 and how it became famous as the troop ship that brought the boys home from the First World War. And here’s the pivot point, even when one of her songs is personal, it bears a witness to truth. These are not made up imaginings set to folky melodies, they are accurate reflections deeply considered. Even at her most private on Hourglass, penned after her father passed, her chorus provides hope for all our futures.
So let these embers burn, and we’ll watch the seasons turn
For I’m the hourglass and you - are falling sand
She co-wrote Flowers with Daria Kulesh. This has the hallmark of an 18th century feminist turning the tables on a sexual predator; listen for the twist in the final shot. A case of sisters doing it for themselves.
Seán Laffey

FREYA RAE
Divergence
Own Label, 7 Tracks, 44 Minutes
www.freyaraemusic.com
Divergence is a Creative Scotland funded project led by Freya Rae on flute, whistles and clarinet. She is joined by clarsach player Siannie Moodie and Tim Lane on kit, percussion, sansula and the tongue drum. The trio take Freya’s own traditionally inspired melodies and twist them into sets and riffs using acoustic instruments and electronic effects. Divergence refers to her choice of non-traditional instruments, for example she plays the Boehm system flute. In that regard she is part of a very small community of players, but with names like Joanie Madden and Philippe Barnes she is in great company.
Alder Bank is a slow, lolloping introduction to the album with the tongue drum establishing the underlying rhythm, the piece develops with a splash of cymbals. It’s a repetitive reminiscence of a waulking song before it takes off into a blistering Scottish reel.
She offers up a jazz-flute middle section on Owlets and by contrast takes us into far more traditional territory on the opening of Willow, a slow air bearing the maximum degree of emotion into the lower register of the flute; the attractive thing about this piece is its consistency. The mood is held from beginning to end. Myrtle (are we seeing a botanical theme here?), is a rolling round of rhythm, hypnotic and engulfing until there’s an abrupt change of gait from the whistle, then a section of harp playing which is light and airy with a snappy bounce - this is a tune that would bring any session to life.
Can Xaco is Freya’s chance to shine on the clarinet. Here the tongue drum takes the role of a gamelan and the overall feel, for me at least rubs shoulders with a Breton An Dro. The album closes with Beetroot, a full on mash up with a final fling of highly florid fluting. Divergence is different, it’s jazzy, syncopated and prepared with tunes that may fly free and have a life of their own. And that is some compliment.
Seán Laffey

ANÚNA
Eilífð
Own Label, 10 Tracks, 46 Minutes www.anuna.ie
Eilífð is the new composition from Anúna. The group’s name was derived from the Irish An Uaithne, a collective term for the three ancient types of Irish music: Suantraí (lullaby), Geantraí (happy song) and Goltraí (lament).
This new collection consists of 10 pieces composed and arranged by Michael McGlynn and available in limited quantities on CD and to download. McGlynn himself describes the album as a natural ancestor of the 2023 release Otherworld, featuring 7 tracks from that album, remixed and re-recorded in some cases. McGlynn began recording Otherworld in 2022 but by its release in 2023 had said he was then past it, and revisited it in 2024.
Discovering something deeper, McGlynn replaced five tracks with three new ones, remixed the entire album, and recorded fresh vocals, resulting in Eilífð, a transformation rather than a replacement.
The title track now unites Anúna, M’Anam, and Systir as The Anúna Collective, culminating in Systir’s haunting vocals. You just calm right down and become enveloped in the music as you listen. An Raibh Tú ag an gCarraig redefines sean-nós through Caitríona Sherlock’s stunning solo, while Earth Song / Maalaulu blends Ash McGlynn and Lorna Breen’s voices with Isaac S. Cates & Ordained, all reaffirming the transformative power of song and voice.
I listened to this new work as I travelled by bus to the airport and the soothing, relaxing essence made my morning something very insightful and essentially beautiful. The harmonies, combined with the medieval sounds bring new meaning to easy listening, and awakens a fresh appreciation for old mixed with new essentially.
McGlynn recently described Anúna as “a living, breathing collective, shaped by shared vision into something transient, yet profoundly beautiful.” That’s exactly what you discover when you listen to Eilífð. This eclectic repertoire will capture your senses and transport you to another era.
Gráinne McCool

MUIREANN BRADLEY
I Kept These Old Blues
Decca Records, 13 Tracks, 51 Minutes www.muireannbradley.ie
At 18 years old, Muireann Bradley from Ballybofey, Co. Donegal is already an internationally acclaimed country blues and ragtime musician. She performs a range of old standards from the early 20th century, although she has also diversified into more recent material. She absorbed this music through her father, who played it constantly throughout her childhood, and she’s been playing guitar since she was 9 years old. This debut album was originally recorded in Ballybofey during the Covid period 2020-2023, and her performance of the opening track Candyman on Jools Holland’s New Year Hootenanny catapulted her into more widespread recognition. She is now signed to Decca and the album has been recently reissued in a remastered version.
Muireann has an uncanny ability to reproduce the guitar techniques of old masters such as Blind Blake, Memphis Minnie, Mississippi John Hurt and Reverend Gary Davis, and this, coupled with her deceptively sweet and pure vocal style, distinguishes her as someone with exceptional command of her chosen genre. Remarkably, each track was recorded in a single take with live vocals and no overdubs.
Candyman has become her calling card and opens the album. Other highlights include Police Dog Blues with its built-in harmonics, Freight Train which features a lovely flowing accompaniment, and the bonus track When The Levee Breaks, the Memphis Minnie song covered years ago by Led Zeppelin; Muireann’s version is effortlessly authentic. Her guitar chops are on show on the two instrumentals, Vestapol and Buck Dancer’s Choice, she can really play, make no mistake.
Muireann Bradley has been acclaimed by such luminaries as Stefan Grossman, the veteran ragtime guitarist who kept this flame lit for decades. Her innate mastery, at such an early age, presages great things to come. She’s already beginning to explore related genres, so her future looks very bright indeed.
Mark Lysaght

MICHELLE GAHAN
Leitrim Fields
Own Label, Single, 4 Minutes www.facebook.com/michellegahanmusic
This is the new single from Michelle Gahan, co-written with her sister Maria Connolly. It is a tribute to her maternal ancestors, a paean to place, nostalgic, evoking a bucolic paradise, simple lives well lived, a strong sense of community, intergenerational respect.
Beautifully sentimental, tender memories passed down, now immortalised in song. The Dartry Mountains, Melvin shores, Kinlough with the creamery, Ballyshannon, anglers on the Drowse, the Astoria ballroom, the Grand Central cinema, exquisite detail, a jaunt around iconic landmarks, a happy childhood laid out in the ordinary rhythms of the everyday.
Kane O’Rourke brings a distinctly traditional Irish feel to the lyrics with whistle and fiddle. Michelle’s voice is warm and intimate, the tone set with the opening line, “our childhood days began with breakfast and a prayer”, and saluting the mountain that oversaw it all in the chorus, “Sliabh Arroo you witnessed all our dreams”.
A personal story, memoir, the bygone days of hard physical work, the father who cycled to work and “on summer evenings he was busy, saving hay and turf”, while the children “ran barefooted through the heather”.
Cepta Graceffa’s artwork graces the cover, the perfect wrapping for poetry, legacy and Leitrim’s landscape.
Anne Marie Kennedy

FOLKLAW
Catch the Sun
Fiddle of 8 Records, 12 Tracks, 46 Minutes www.folklaw.co.uk
FolkLaw is a UK based folk rock group which has just released its latest album Catch the Sun, its fourth album in all. Having come to my notice with their previous release We Will Rise, this new twelve track CD Catch the Sun neatly documents their progress since last time. Musically, UK folk rock bands tend to fall between two camps, those who concentrate on revised traditional ballads in the vein coined by Steeleye Span and Fairport Convention, or more contemporaneous sounding outfits that espouse causes from political commentary to those who ponder on more general subject matter.
FolkLaw falls into the latter box as musically their cards fall between The Waterboys, Mumford and Sons, The Levellers, Tempest, Gaelic Storm and Lindisfarne, so it’s a widely appealing catch. The use of fiddle and flute as lead instruments add a swing and flounce that is immediately appealing, while the vocals tend to be melodic as opposed to didactic –however Burn and In Old England possess a clenched emotional fist. Fighting for Charlie is a retelling of a historical battle ballad, delivered with finger clicking bounce and subtle instrumentation and is one of the standout tracks. There is no specific political viewpoint espoused save the lack of freedom in Shire Man and Right to Roam. Road to Donegal, a sprightly romantic boy meets girl saga is delivered with panache and style and He Dances steps into reggae territory, and the closing Hope is Still Alive ends on notes of stirring positivity.
The performances are solid, together and ace tight, displaying a buoyancy and control that’s impressive. FolkLaws’s artistic abilities have developed considerably since We Will Rise and Catch the Sun bursts with both a reserved fury and a relentless optimism.
John O’Regan