With her second CD The Horse’s Tail, wunderkind fiddler Zoë Conway has opted for a radical change from her Bill Whelan-produced 2002 eponymous debut. The new album was recorded live over three days in a barn in Omeath, Co. Louth, with – as Conway points out in her liner notes – “no overdubs, no headphones, no click tracks and no safety nets!”. The result is a stunning, sustained performance, full of life and delivering a powerfully immediate impact.
Guitarist Steve Cooney and bodhrán player Robbie Harris provide fine accompaniment, but perhaps the most impressive tracks are those on which Conway plays solo. The title track is a case in point, full of verve and swagger, and it’s reprised at the end of the album as a “bonus track” recorded live at the Willie Clancy Summer School in 2006. Along with a number of other tunes on the CD, it’s a Conway original; other standouts in this category include the driving ‘Dannan’s Reel’, written for her “wee scamp of a nephew”, and an evocative Scottish-influenced number called ‘The White Deer’ – Conway suspects it would sound great on the Highland pipes and I suspect she’s right.
On two Charlie Lennon compositions, ‘The Smiling Bride’ and ‘The Handsome Young Maidens’, Conway is joined by her sister and fellow fiddler, Lisa, for a splendid unaccompanied duet, with Lisa playing a nifty harmony on the second tune.
In addition to being a virtuoso on the fiddle, Conway also has a sweet, childlike singing voice that she uses to good effect on ‘A Ghaoth Andeas’ and ‘Westlin Winds’. The vocal tracks don’t quite measure up to the instrumentals, but that’s only in light of the outstanding quality of the latter.
Nine/Ten