REVIEW FROM www.livingtradition.co.uk

 

 


 

 

 
Angelina Carberry & Martin Quinn

ANGELINA CARBERRY & MARTIN QUINN - Angelina Carberry & Martin Quinn
ReelTrad Records RTR 001

Angelina is a tenor banjo player, born in Manchester into a County Longford family, who moved to Galway, picking up musical influences en route. Martin plays accordion and melodeon, and comes from a County Armagh family. They have respectively played with the Bumblebees and La Lugh among others.

Theirs is a marital as well as a musical partnership, which may explain a lot of the empathy that they exhibit in this album. Their playing is fluid but perfectly tight, each feeding off the other, and having a great time of it as well. There is a certain affinity between tenor banjos and squeezeboxes anyway, I have always felt, and together they can lift a tune and carry it along grand style.

Like all good musical partnerships, they understand the importance of timing and phrasing, allowing the pace to suit the melody, not going all-out when not needed, but not afraid of a fair turn of speed when it suits. What we also get here is the feeling that this is a session in waiting, as you just want to grab hold of some instrument or other and join in (if you think you're good enough!) Angelina and Martin are subtly and wonderfully accompanied here by John Blake on guitar and piano, and also by Alan McCartney on guitar.

Talented musicians playing at their best and sounding like they're really having fun - what more can you ask for?

Gordon Potter

Secure On-line mailorder service
Buy this CD online from The Listening Post
The Listening Post is the CD mailorder service of The Living Tradition magazine.
This album was reviewed in Issue 61 of The Living Tradition magazine.