Various Artists: Songs of Peace (Vredesconcerten Passendale/MAP Records)
This dreamy little folk opera, subsidised by the Zonnebeke Council of West Flanders, is built around the life and poetry of Francis Ledwidge (18871917), from his origins in Slane to the first World War shell that vaporised him in mid-cup of tea. Played off sheet music by Belgians on big fat cello, Alfred van Ouden's doedelzak (Flemish bagpipes), Peter Derudder's dirgey uileann pipe and a knapsack of concertinas, accordions, whistles and bodhrans, there are some traditional Flanders tunes, while the Irish stuff loses something in the translation. And after the continentals get stuck into our colonial past, it's a relief to hear the rough lullaby of Sean Tyrrell's dangling vocal lines - there's real poetic authority here.
- Mic Moroney
John O'Halloran: But Why, Johnny? (Independent)
A Mac-the-Knifish album title for this Inishbofin islander and upbeat old-style accordionist who can call on boxman Dermot Byrne, or indeed Alec Finn, for a duet. From the rattle-and-wheeze of his C and D melodeons and C sharp accordion, he squee-gees mostly wellworn tunes in a nimble, straightforward style with a metronomic, head-jerking belt off it; punching the bellows around as though to cattleprod dancers along. Recorded in Martin Murray's Ennis studio, it hosts some fiddler friends and one Jimmy Higgins on piano, bodhran and snare drum for sheer ceili militarism. But O'Halloran is his own rhythm section, with an uplifting internal clock which well compensates for his Barney Rubble antics on the inside sleeve.
- Mic Moroney
Lead, Kindly Light (Opera Omnia)
First there was Faith of Our Fathers - now comes Faith of Our Neighbours, a selection of Catholic hymns sung by the choir of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. A "Catholic hymn" is, it seems, a broader church than its Anglican counterpart, for this CD happily mixes such familiar footstompers as Praise to the Holiest with the plainsong chant of Veni, Creator Spiritus and Faure's languid Ave Verum Corpus, and places Palestrina's stunning Alma Redemptoris Mater, with its moving 11th-century text by Hermann the Lame, alongside singalong traditional favourites O Sacred Heart and Hail Queen of Heaven The Ocean Star. The singing is sturdy and uplifting; as a listening experience, it's lump-in-the-throat time.
- Arminta Wallace
More CDs reviewed in tomorrow's Weekend supplement.
