Mick O'Brien and Others: The Ancient Voice of Ireland (Ainm Records/RTE)
Mick O'Brien is a handy piper, so for all the cheesy, lobotomised-leprechaun concept here, he far from crucifies these big, heavily sedated airs: Carrickfergus, Down by the Sally Gardens, Lagan Love, or for rebel stigmata, Boulavogue, etc. Gushed along by Seamus Brett's keyboards (drones, twinkly pianos, clip-clop percussion, synth-harps to keep costs down), there are some seriously corny moments, but O'Brien actually turns the airs around (even Danny Boy); working in a beautiful Roisin Dubh (on the D-whistle at least), and a very musical The Coolin. On the overblown song-airs, he takes the safest option: using no more brute ornament than is necessary - allowing the great stentorian instrument to open itself up across the ditch like a cash cow that has never lost her dignity.
- Mic Moroney
Various Artists: Fleadh: Ten Years of Irish Folk (BMG)
Masquerading as the Folk half of the brain of the Fleadh - that annual, er, Celtic muck-in at Finsbury Park - this compilation, like its Ten Years of Rock companion, is weirdly not a live album at all, but some DJ's ragbag lifted from albums of artists who, one presumes, played the festival over the last decade. Mind you, much of it is brash, upbeat and summery, from Christy Moore's Welcome to the Cabaret (from his Live at the Point album) and Donal Lunny's Glentown (Tommy Peoples' title reel) to The Dubliners' Seven Drunken Nights (sheesh!) and other old Irish classics (Ancient Rain, No Frontiers, etc). It's naked merchandising of a just-another compilation which, like most things in life, only confirms one's existing prejudices.
- Mic Moroney
