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MIKE MCGOLDRICK & DEZI DONNELLY - Dog In The Fog  

MIKE MCGOLDRICK & DEZI DONNELLY - Dog In The Fog  
Boxroom Music BRM001CD  

Flute and fiddle from two of the very best in the business! McGoldrick and Donnelly have played together for many years, notably in the Mike McGoldrick Band, but have not recorded a duet album before - although there was a Two Champions recording of very similarly-named young musicians in the late seventies or early eighties. This new recording presents both Mike and Dezi at the top of their game, wonderfully effortless playing, intuitive duets, and a great sound from flute, fiddle and pipes. Dog In The Fog is not a flash showpiece CD, but a return to the old music of their shared childhoods, the heart of the Irish tradition, performed with feeling and deep understanding. The Killavil Jig, The Connaughtman's Rambles, An Buachaillín Dreoite, Maude Millar's - these are tunes which youngsters still learn today, and which can be heard in any Irish session around the world, but which you will hardly ever hear played better.

Some of the music on Dog In The Fog is not session fare: John Sheahan's air St Patrick's Cathedral, the Carolan piece Colonel O'Hara, and Mike's composition for Dezi, the slow jig Black Swan On The Turlough. McGoldrick switches to uilleann pipes for a couple of tracks, and Donnelly tunes down to accommodate Mike's C flute on some of the more atmospheric numbers, but that's all the variation needed to keep the listener's attention throughout this album. The Humours Of Westport and The Boys Of Tanderagee, a spirited version of Happy To Meet And Sorry To Part, a slightly unusual take on The Galtee Rangers and a final rake of reels ending with Sweeney's Dream: these are just some of the highlights here. Irish music enthusiasts will need no urging to acquire this CD, and it will doubtless soon take its place beside recordings by Molloy and Keane, Finn and Horan, and other great flute and fiddle duets of the tradition.

Alex Monaghan


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This album was reviewed in Issue 126 of The Living Tradition magazine.