Anúna: Revelation | Album Review

Nine years on from their last CD release, and close to three decades since their founder, Michael McGlynn, first convened this choral group, Anúna exists, as Sliabh Luachra does, as much a state of mind as an entity.

The group's membership ebbs and flows, but McGlynn's steely focus is ever-present. Revelation glories in a rich coalition of original material composed by McGlynn, alongside a beautiful early Christian text, Sanctus Santua, and, somehow fittingly, two divinely poised Japanese pieces whose sinuous lines allow the full choral potential of the group to shimmer.

The opener, Mononoke Hime, reveals the deeper warp and weft of the ensemble. McGlynn's writing has grown in confidence and subtlety, and the decision to use harmonica on Elegy (with text from the Book of Ecclesiasticus) adds to the richness of Anúna's sound. anuna.ie