SHARON SHANNON: “Out The Gap” (Solid)

SHARON SHANNON is a hard act to follow, especially when it managed to rehabilitate an entire musical instrument’s reputation in the course of some 52 minutes of virtuoso playing. Then again, if you insist on keeping company with the quintessence of Ireland’s traditional (and not so traditional) musicians it’s small wonder that your standards hit vertiginous heights more often than even Burt Lancaster did when the trapeze was his day job.

Sharon Shannon’s been round the haggart more than a few times since her last album and it shows. Granted, the repertoire was far from tunnel-visioned first time out, but the melting pot that comprises so many of her live musical forays has resulted in an even more spiced mélange – if that can be possible.

At first the creole mix threatens to engulf the tunes – accordion and fiddle all but strangled by an over-enthusiastic sax and drums, particularly on ‘The Bit Mistake’ and ‘The Mighty Sparrow’, but Shannon and main producer, John Dunford manage to return to basics quickly, the tunes and melodies fast forwarded past the menacing percussion before they’ve had a chance to sink too deep.

And then once she surfaces for air, Shannon takes it in in huge gulps, bucketfuls of life that propel the entire affair Out The Gap and into the great wide open spaces, where they bask and glory in the sheer magic of her charmed fraternity.

‘Butterflies’, a traditional Finnish tune is the first to take flight, with Sharon’s accordion melding seamlessly with Brian O’Connor’s spare piano. From there all manner of locations and peann luaidhes spring into action: Shannon’s own fiddling waltzes across Gerry O’Beirne’s gentle lilting guitar on ‘Thunderhead’; French Canada supplies the spur that propels the trio of ‘Bungee Jumpers’ and ‘Reel Beatrice’ into orbit, Trevor Hutchinson’s double bass and O’Beirne’s guitars counterpointing the accordion’s stridency with a lightness of touch that hints at more than a minuscule appreciation for the silence as much as the din of a recording studio. As for her reading of Robbie Overson’s beautiful ‘Maguire And Paterson’, she knows a classic when she hears it and leaves the accordion do most of the mournful talking for itself.

As for John O’Kane’s cello and Máire Breatnach’s viola on ‘The Duke Of York’s Troops’, well . . . images of Jane Austin taking a turn around the room amid the drawing room grandeur of Breatnach’s string arrangements seem strangely comfortable and apt.

And ultimately, it’s the strings that best sit with Shannon’s blithe accordioning. Percussion and saxophone never quite manage to hang loose, though given a wide enough berth they do allow some breathing space for the box to fill its lungs to the full.

Out The Gap? Across the haggart and off she goes. There ain’t no stopping her now.

• Siobhán Long