The latest releases reviewed.

ÉAMONN COYNE & KRIS DREVER Honk Toot Suite Compass Records ***

Salsa Celtica's Éamonn Coyne follows his 2003 solo debut, Through the Round Window, with this intimate two-hander alongside guitarist and singer Kris Drever. The pair's perambulations through the opening trio are pedestrian, lacking momentum. All changes, though, on Lakeside Barndances, when the swing of 1920s Irish America takes root, and suddenly the pair ooze charisma (ignited, perhaps, by the gloriously christened Manitoba McGillicuddy Barbershop Three). Drever's folky vocals betray more than a passing influence from his Orkney Island father, Ivan. It's an unfussy, low-key style that demands repeated exposure before he wheedles beneath the skin, but ultimately he does. Cock a Doodle, first recorded in 1926, is a puckish snapshot of a pair just finding their feet as the collection winds down. www.compassrecords.com Siobhán Long

THERESA KAVANAGH The Seventh Veil No label ***

Theresa Kavanagh now joins a burgeoning coterie of female fiddlers who are mean composers, too. Like Cork fiddler Edel Sullivan, Kavanagh's strength lies in her visceral melodic sensibility, tracing curlicued pathways through terrain scattered with references both local and global. Bookending a reel borrowed from Paddy O'Brien with a pair of her own, Maggie Dan's and Sarah's Fancy, Kavanagh's fiddle lines are refreshingly uncluttered. So too, is Rachel's Waltz, a finely wrought gift born of a bereavement but bathed in a celebration of life. Debuts don't come with more glittering stars than this (Donald Shaw, Manus Lunny, Gerry "Banjo" O'Connor, Michael McGoldrick), but the abundance of production burdens rather than buoys - particularly in its lumbering percussion. Still, she is a fiddler who will surely unfurl her own unique voice before too long. www.theresakavanagh.com Siobhán Long