Kieran Hanrahan plays The Irish Tenor Banjo (Banner Discs)
This is, remarkably, the first solo album from this Ennis-born former Stockton's Wing and Ceili House frontman. It's a solid, unhurried applecart, with Mike Hanrahan's guitar, Sonny Murray's forceful concertina, and Tommy Hayes's bones, bodhrans and talking drums, with Hanrahan sitting up on top with his snappy, clean banjo-playing, throwing off lovely little side-steps and arcing phrases, swaying around the corners on the Golden Eagle hornpipe, or tearing at a down-home Ma- son's Apron the way a dog would worry a rag doll. If the banjo ever seems an earth-bound instrument, Hanrahan disentangles great lyricism from it, with an unflappable ould skill and discipline which is a joy to hear.
- Mic Moroney
Lama Gyurme & Jean-Philippe Rykiel: Rain of Blessings; Vajra Chants Real World
You have to drop your metabolic rate to tune into the implacable basso profundo of this Tibetan Buddhist monk, with the ancient, arresting simplicity of his 7-minute-long blessings, offerings and healing chants; purifying prayers and mantras to the Lotus Lord. But awash in Rykiel's fussy synthscapes - Enoesque ambiences, Jean-Michel Jarre-style Eurosugar, with the odd, compulsory Peter Gabriel stamp to the keyboards - the good Lama's microtonal rhythm-wobbles are often submerged. You find yourself rocking very slowly to the transcendent growl-of-ages of his medicine mantras, but apart from the bowel-shaking drums, echoing temple bells and odd heart-breaking Romany fiddle, you constantly feel like burning away the big-production studio nonsense.
- Mic Moroney