Latest releases reviewed

PAUDIE O'CONNOR Different State Push Button Records ***

Solo debuts seldom come as clean shaven as Paudie O'Connor's. A Sliabh Luachra box player who's been imbibing tunes since he was knee high to Johnny O'Leary, O'Connor tackles a formidably eclectic collection with one ear cocked to the tradition and the other basking in a spare style that's all too rare these days. His box-playing dips and soars with rollercoaster agility, aptly plummeting to reach the emotional depths demanded by Bess Cronin's bequest, the slow air Casamar Araon Na Géanna Romhainn, and then soaring high to scale the stratosphere where the glorious polka, The Pigs Eating Nuts in the Woods, resides. Paul De Grae lends sympathetically skeletal guitar and judicious tinctures of fiddle and flute complete a finely rounded debut. www.claddaghrecords.com

Siobhán Long

SHARON SHANNON, FRANKIE GAVIN, MICHAEL MCGOLDRICK AND JIM MURRAY Tunes RMG Chart ***

There's a touch of the slippery eel about Tunes. A supergroup project, featuring four of the finest players in the tradition, at times it errs on the side of overweaning gentility rather than the expected awesome brilliance its individual players might promise. Sharon Shannon's smiley-happy presence pervades the collection, particularly on the knee-slapping bonhomie of Billy in the Low Ground, and Michael McGoldrick's flute melds seamlessly with Shannon's accordion on the lullaby-like Mickey Joe Mikes. Jim Murray's rhythm lines are characteristically intuitive, and the quartet come into their own on the Lúnasa-tinged The Bass Rock. Asturian, Scottish, Irish and new tunes abound, but Frankie Gavin's presence is surprisingly muted throughout. Curiously unsatisfying. www.daisydiscs.com

Siobhán Long