Latest releases reviewed

SEOIRSE Ó DOCHARTAIGH
Seoirse
Claddagh
***

There's a childlike sense of wonder about this collection that will either tickle or irk the listener. The haughty grandeur of the piano arrangements add further contradiction to what is a learned congregation. Schubert's Andante con moto sits astride Ó Dochartaigh's Bríd Bán as though the coupling were divinely inspired, with Sheila and Moya O'Grady's violin and cello lending a velveteen throatiness to the bold arrangements. Seoirse Ó Dochartaigh makes music with a distinct painterly feel: full of light and shade, playing with the rhythmic lyric of the childlike Cuach Mo Londubh Buí, and echoing Van Morrison's (long departed) funky playfulness on An Spealadóir, where surprisingly, lead guitar, keyboards and drums slide a reggae beat beneath a tale of a travelling spailpín. Expect the unexpected - at every hand's turn. www.seoirseodochartigh.com

DÓNAL MAGUIRE
Michael Davitt - The Forgotten Hero?
Rossendale Records
***

Broadside ballads conjure all manner of worlds for the listener, their lyrical intensity and ferocious sense of time and place luring the most recalcitrant into their web. Dónal Maguire boldly wraps a drawstring around a ragbag collection of songs of his own choosing here, in pursuit of his ultimate goal: to capture the spirited defiance of Michael Davitt, Land Leaguer and man of many parts. Maguire swings effortlessly between the straight-arrow slingshot of Hold the Rents, Hold the Harvest, a classic Davitt tribute that also accords due credit to Fanny Parnell (sister of Charles Stewart) of the Ladies Land League, and the subtler (some might venture obtuse) connection in A Clearance Melody, a naked lamentation of the horrors of indentured labour. An idiosyncratic but canny collection.

www.donalmaguire.co.uk