De Danann: How the West Was Won (Hummingbird)
After 25 years, you'd hardly begrudge these godlike elder muppets of trad their lap of honour, even if this is just a best-of double-CD (with some new live tracks) of the ferocious enmeshed babble of their unique, organic arrangements, led off by Frankie Gavin's fiddle bursts with a variety of great box-players (Derek Hickey these days), over Alex Finn's intricate bouzouki, Johnny "Ringo" McDonagh's pounding tattoo on bodhrans, bones and bottles, and the odd mad rowl out of showman Gavin to keep the seisiun adrenalised. It also celebrates singers like Dolores Keane (a founder-member), Mary Black, Maura O'Connell, Eleanor Shanley and best of all, old-timer Sean O Conaire. Although often tinged with Romany, Yiddish, Beatles, baroque, gospel, jazz and swing, the music is always wickedly, infectiously Irish.
By Mic Moroney
Niall Vallely: Beyond Words (Independent)
Maybe Noel Hill has scared off the competition, as you rarely hear a solo concertina album, but this forceful Nomos instrumentalist has a very modern ear. Significantly, a third of the tunes are his own: the circulating arabic phrases of the title track, the complex, bluesy Rollingwater Reels, and the flittering Pitbull Spiders. He has a propensity for old piping tunes, like the nice duet with Cillian Vallely on The Gold Ring (although he crunches The High Drive into pure ornament). There is great invention in the strings, piano, bass, Mel Mercier's percussion, even the drums, but I find more solace in the unaccompanied numbers, like Ur-Chill an Chreagain and a beautiful Rakish Paddy - before the honky-tonk ceili plays us out with Connemara Stockings. Yeah, very interesting.
By Mic Moroney
