IARLA Ó LIONÁIRD  Invisible Fields  EMI  ****

What do you get when you cross an Eno-esque appetite for sonic ambience with a past steeped in traditional music in general, and sean nós singing in particular? Invisible Fields - that's what. Genre-bending doesn't even come close to describing the Olympian leap of faith that Iarla Ó Lionáird has taken with this, his third - and by far his best - solo album. Swing shifting from the childlike wonderment of Cu-cu-ín to the now mournful, then anger-filled reading of one of the tradition's biggest songs, I'm Weary of Lying Alone, with the ease of a musician who's reconciled the demands of the tradition with his own creative energy, Ó Lionáird's voice contracts and expands effortlessly to fill the tiniest and the most cavernous of spaces. Aside from the boldness of his vision, with samples borrowed from Tibetan singer Yungchen Lhamo on the one hand and his Cúil Aodha parents on the other, Iarla Ó Lionáird's real triumph is his voice: as soft as a feather bed and as searingly sharp as a blade when the mood calls, as it does on Tuirimh Mhic Fhinín Dhuibh. Ó Lionáird's is a soundscape laden with influences as diverse as Gavin Bryars and Jordi Savall. Finally, after too long left lurking on the perimeters of the mix, his voice takes centre stage, infusing the reflective Aurora with a suitably celestial spirit, and leaving no vibration untouched in the celebratory The Day You Were Born. Unquestionably a coming of age. www.realworldrecords.com

Siobhán Long