Traditional

Flook: Flatfish (Flatfish Records)

With a name like a cartoon-cussword, this Anglo-Irish crowd do an unplugged, jazzy thing with traditional reels and jigs as well as the odd waltz, muineira or Macedonian bumshaker, and a few tunes of their own. The core is the rapid, staccato, harmonised expressive flutes and whistles of Peter Finnegan and Sarah Allen (also accordion); undercut by John Joe Kelly's thumpeting bodhran and Ed Boyd's crunching guitars, bouzouki and mandolin - in big, purly rounds of each part of the tune, before jamming off into long six-minuters which must be great crack for all concerned, flutter-tonguing each other into high-diddle heaven. As you might say of a wine, a tad young.

Mic Moroney

Danny O'Donnell: On tSean-Am Anall (Radio na Gaeltachta)

This 89-year-old Donegalman was recorded in 1977, not 1997 as the sleeve says, but there's no taking from this deft, bright, turf-cutting fiddling. There's great relaxation in his pitch-perfect style, with a brusque metronome like the tick of a fast clock, with Johnny O'Beirn's swingceili guitar only adding spit to the polish. O'Donnell got music from Neilly Boyle, but he also drags you back to old session partner Paddy Killoran. And he puts familiar tunes through his own thresher of emphatic, syncopated rhythms, every phrase beautifully closed, with a little run to turn the head sideways; with clicky little triplets on the bottom string making a dance classic out of one highland. Extraordinary.

Mic Moroney