The Living Tradition
PO Box 1026
KILMARNOCK
KA2 0LG

Tel 01563 571220

Our Reviewers
Top Selections

_________________

SOURCE

Scottish
Irish
English
Welsh
Gaelic
Cape-Breton
Australian
America
Canada
Galician

CONTENT

Song - Solo
Song - Group
Instrumental
Instr'l Groups
Music & Song
Dance
Pipe Bands
Archive
New Writing
Compilations

INSTRUMENTS

Pipes
Fiddle
Accordion
Flute
Whistle
Guitar
Mandolin
Banjo
Harp
_________________

Newletter
Feedback
About Us
Advertise
Writer's Guidelines
Links
Site Map

Email Us

This site is Copyright (C) The Living Tradition Ltd. No part of this site may be used without the permission of The Living Tradition.

BRIEGE MURPHY - From Now On
Sceolang CD1

A bit of a conundrum, this. The sparcity of the sleeve notes seems to point to a home-spun effort, but the music itself is well-made, the track list is most interesting and on the bottom line, I really like it.

Briege (who I hope doesn’t want me to pronounce her name until I’ve had a bit of guidance) delivers ten songs in her native accent (assuming that she comes from Northern Ireland) in a style that is both lived-in and unassuming. About half the tracks are dead-on Irish Traditional (‘Verdant Braes of Screen’, ‘Slieve Gallion Braes’, ‘The Creel’ and the like), whilst the other half are out-on-a-limb Country Classics – there’s a Susannah Clarke song about “a quarter moon in a ten-cent town”, a great version of Taylor’s timeless ‘Sweet Baby James’ and two absolute killer songs by Townes Van Zandt (‘Tecuseh Valley’ and ‘Pancho and Lefty’). The arrangements and accompaniment come right out of the top drawer, much of it played by the album’s producer Johnny Scott. The distinctive presence of percussionist Tom McFarland, a name familiar to this reviewer from his outstanding English tours with Fil Campbell, and the Rostrevor, address of the recording studio helps to place ‘From Now On’ into some kind of context, but it’s still a bit of a guessing game. The only photo is an uncredited sunset (or sunrise) repeated no less than six times throughout the packaging, and though the song lyrics are reproduced, there’s not a lot else to go on.

But what the hell – I like it!

Alan Rose