Conversations about Irish traditional music used to be mired in arguments about whether musicians or their music could be defined as tradition or innovation. Thankfully, we’ve come a long way from that binary notion.
Folk music was a broader church, and now the Córas Trio, from Belfast, are expanding it even further with their eponymous debut, which is, by their own definition, an avant-garde folk collection. The trio of Kevin McCullagh, on fiddle and electronics, Paddy McKeown, on guitar and electronics, and Conor McAuley, on drums, create quite the firestorm, one that crackles and sparks with a delicious unpredictability. They trace a rare arc from the early American recordings of the Sligo fiddler Michael Coleman to the jazz-tinged lateral thinking of Tommie Potts, and onwards to the foundational unpicking of tunes beloved of Martin Hayes and, later, the mining of tunes by Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh.
In between there are more definitive jazz-coloured flourishes too, but what’s most striking is that some of the pieces suffer from a placement of the drums too high in the mix, overwhelming the more subtle touches on fiddle and guitar.
Still, the trio’s nod to Tommy Peoples on their second track rings true, and the bold, truth-seeking nature of the opening track, Jackie Fitzpatrick’s, is an intriguing calling card that sets the tone for the adventures that follow. Córas Trio’s session chops are evident in their choice of Julia Delany’s as a reference point, along with The Heights of Muingvuara, but both are utterly reinvented here, defying the space-time continuum and tracing their own zig-zag route to a satisfying conclusion. Their deconstruction of The Boys of Ballisodare, the album’s closer, is a final declaration of intent: to boldly go where few have even dreamed of going before.
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This is an audacious and self-assured collection that heralds yet another welcome hairpin bend in the world of folk and traditional music.
