Conor Moriarty

All in a Day's Play (independent release)****

Sliabh Luachra has yielded up more than its share of treasures, propelled by box players who know how to put fire in the belly of its tunes.It’s obvious that debutant Conor Moriarty has supped long at the well, absorbing the lift and flow of those fiery polkas and slides into every fibre of his being. Echoes of Seamus Begley and Steve Cooney’s seminal Meitheal album can be heard from the early slides set, fittingly anchored by The Star Above the Garter.

There's sufficient looseness in the definition of Moriarty's playing to suggest that he's never sundered the relationship between the music and dance, and it's his steady, rhythmic style that conjures aerial dance steps even when listening to this collection in the dead of night. His inclusion of a number of Finbarr Dwyer's tunes adds a rich vein of inventiveness to the mix. A three dimensional, glorious debut. claddaghrecords.com