Celtic Music Reviews: 2005/05

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Labels: articles

--posted by Marc Gunn, Thursday, May 12, 2005.
Find Celtic Free Music Downloads from the Brobdingnagian Bards.

"The Well Tempered Bow" by Liz & Yvonne Kane

by Michelle Osborne

Artist: Liz & Yvonne Kane
Album: "The Well Tempered Bow"
Year produced: 2002

I had seen this album in my local Borders for many months before it was brought up in traditional folk music community. Someone recommended it and when I was looking to pick up a few new albums, this was one of the four I walked out of the store with. I was more than pleasantly surprised at this album (especially considering the classically-oriented title), I was completely amazed at the maturity and brilliance of these young women's playing.

Liz and Yvonne, who hail from the Connemara area on the west coast of Ireland, got their start through their grandfather, Jimmy Mullen (a leading figure in traditional music) and their teacher, Mary Finn McCrudden. Liz, who was into the competition scene, won several awards, including the prestigious All-Ireland senior fiddle title. The sisters have toured with Sharon Shannon and on their own, been guest artists on a number of albums, and have released two albums of their own playing.

The Well Tempered Bow was the Kane sisters' first album. Filled with their brilliant unison South Sligo playing (heavily influenced by fiddle great, Paddy Fahey), every track on this album is beautiful and expertly executed, which is why it's so hard to pick out those that are the highlights. One favourite would be the Kye's Reel/Lenawee Reel set. Both tunes, which were composed by Liz, are darkly driving minor-based tunes and are certain to make you sit up a little further on the edge of your seat. Another favourite is the nostalgic waltz, Koesnacht. Written by Johnny McCarthy while in Switzerland, the title translates to "kiss in the night." A couple other highlights are the reel set, Paddy Fahey's/The Man of the House/Paddy Fahey's, which has a great minor tune surrounded by two of Paddy Fahey's well-known tunes, and The Girl From the Big House/Trá na mBan/Thank God We're Surrounded by Water, a jig set which features a tune by Liz (Trá nam Ban), and a Paddy Fahey setting of the final tune.

Keep an eye on these girls. They're young and they're going to go very far. I highly recommend this album and anything else they might come out with. The Kane sisters can be found on the web at: http://www.thekanesisters.com/.

Buy the Album: "The Well Tempered Bow"

Celtic MP3s Music Magazine writer, Michelle Osborne, is a native to the central New York region. She plays both high and low whistles regularly with the Syracuse Irish session. Besides being heavily involved in Irish traditional music, she is also a classical clarinetist and composer.

--posted by Marc Gunn, Monday, May 09, 2005.
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"Kilkelly" by Moloney, O'Connell & Keane

by Phil Hall

Artist: Moloney, O'Connell & Keane
Album: Kilkelly
Year produced: 1988

The main reason to seek out this recording from the short-lived trio of Mick Moloney, Robbie O'Connell and Jimmy Keane is the title song. Written by Peter Jones, it follows a series of letters from a father in Eire and his son in America. The father's struggle to survive in the midst of famine and poverty are truly heartbreaking, and the distance (both geographic and emotional) between parent and child results in a shattering climax. This is easily one of the most compelling compositions in modern Celtic music, and it is impossible not to come away from it without sore tear ducts.

Beyond "Kilkelly," however, is a fairly strange and often lopsided recording. Another song, "Peter Pan and Me," details the loss of innocence during the seemingly endless troubles, but unlike "Kilkelly" it comes across as trite and mechanical rather. Two straightforward instrumentals, combining reels and jigs, are okay but not particularly memorable.

But then there is the epic offering called "The Green Fields of America." Billed as an "operetta," this lengthy but excessively weird piece attempts to trace the experience of the Irish in America through various reels, dances, jigs, folk songs and ditties. It is not so much an operetta as it is a musical Mulligan's stew tossing in bits and pieces of "The Sailor's Hornpipe," "No Irish Need Apply," "The Night That Paddy Murphy Died" and even "The Notre Dame Fight Song" plus the Bing Crosby novelty tune "Two Shillelagh O'Sullivan." It is a mess, to be certain, and often it seems as if the Irish-American odyssey was a mix of treacly melodrama and bad vaudeville.

Moloney, O'Connell & Keane only recorded another album before disbanding. It would seem the brilliance of "Kilkelly" was something of a fluke, albeit an extraordinary fluke.

Buy the Album: Kilkelly

Celtic MP3s Music Magazine writer, Phil Hall is contributing editor for Film Threat, book editor for the New York Resident, author of "The Encyclopedia of Underground Movies" (MWP Books) and a proud child of Wales.

--posted by Marc Gunn, Monday, May 09, 2005.
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"Irish Heartbeat" by Van Morrison and the Chieftains

by Phil Hall

Artist: Van Morrison and the Chieftains
Album: "Irish Heartbeat"
Year produced: 1988

The Chieftains have collaborated musically with a wide spectrum of creative artists, ranging from James Galway to the Rolling Stones. But perhaps their finest pairing came when Van Morrison joined them for the 1988 album "Irish Heartbeat," which is my choice for the very best of the Chieftains' canon.

"Irish Heartbeat" consists of 10 songs, eight of them traditional Irish melodies which are performed with such depth and vibrancy that it is easy to assume they are all brand new. Morrison was in playful vocal form, sowing musical wild oats with the opening "Star of the County Down" and the raucous reel "I'll Tell Me Ma." The Chieftains' main vocalist Kevin Conneff does a grand vocal duel with Morrison on "Ta Mo Chleamhnas Deanta (My Match It Is Made"), with Morrison taking the English lyrics while Conneff keeps the Irish lyrics in play.

The emotionalism of Irish folk music is heard with uncommonly graceful renditions of "Carrickfergus" and "She Moved Through the Fair." Morrison's decidedly mature and raw voice gives these renditions a tinge of time-weathered poignancy and rue which is frequently absent when the songs are performed by singers of a younger and finely-trained voice.

The two new songs created for the recording, "Irish Heartbeat" and "Celtic Ray," are pleasant if not particularly stirring. But their inadequacies are easy to overlook, especially with the closing polka "Marie's Wedding," a sweeping and jolly swish of matrimonial celebration (and listen carefully for the lush back-up vocals from Mary Black, Maura O'Connell and June Boyce).

Buy the Album: "Irish Heartbeat"

--posted by Marc Gunn, Saturday, May 07, 2005.
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