The Gloaming
Album: The Gloaming
Label: Real World
Tracks: 10
Website: http://thegloaming.net/

Milestones in the Irish music tradition are rarer than might be imagined, beginning perhaps with Sean O'Riada's take on ensemble playing, and following through a fairly linear progression which saw bands like Planxty, the Bothy Band, Moving Hearts make a huge impression on the cultural consciousness of both Ireland and other nations. With the debut album from this quintet, we may well have another one to mark up, as new parameters are set-not just of excellence, which is a given-but of direction, intellectual freedom and integrity, which sets this piece of work-and it is that, as much as it is music-head and shoulders above anything else we are likely to hear this year.

Song 44 opens proceedings, an adaptation of an 800 year old poem set to music by Thomas (Doveman)Bartlett, and band vocalist Iarla O'Lionaird. Sparse piano, and vocal lead in the track, setting the tone for the space created within the piece, indeed, within the album as an entity. Fiddle and Hardanger fiddle from Martin Hayes and Caoimhin O'Raghallaigh expand the musical patina, before the piece concludes with a jig based around the melody. Examples of this use, and creation of, space abound from start to finish, most particularly in the epic, 16 minute , waggishly titled Opening Set, coming in as track 8!

As with the opening track, Iarla's plaintive vocal kicks things off, and various journeys, each of which could be a standalone track, are undertaken, as melody lines and rhythms are explored, repeated, suspended in mid-air, and picked up or diverted, before coming to a breathtaking , rambunctious climax.

What is remarkable about this album is the influence brought to bear on things by producer and keyboardist Thomas Bartlett. Coming from without the tradition, he, as he admits, does not recognise the lines that bind the other members, to melody, rhythm, or shape. Equally significant is the cohesion, mutual trust and understated nature of proceedings. Everything fits perfectly, from the empathic nature of Dennis Cahill's guitar work, to the assured vocal performance of Iarla O'Lionaird-most particularly on Sean O'Riordain's poem Freedom which becomes a metaphor for the work as a whole.

With this remarkable album, what we have here is a work of feel, substance and no little magic. A spectral, shapeshifting marvel for which it will be very hard to find an equal in this, or any other year.

Oliver P.Sweeney.