Ar An Bhfidil

This debut solo CD by 24-year-old Sligo fiddler Oisín Mac Diarmada opens with a superbly confident set of tunes played without accompaniment, full of lovely raw scraping double-stops and rolls. Elsewhere on the album, Séamus Quinn contributes a bouncy piano to a few tracks, a set of reels played by Mac Diarmada on the whistle has bodhrán backing from Tristan Rosenstock, and several others feature bouzouki or guitar accompaniment; there are also a couple of fine duets with fellow fiddler John Carty. Mostly, though, it does exactly what it says on the tin – pure traditional fiddling, raw and unadorned, and all the better for it. The album was produced by RTRs Harry Bradshaw, who’s done a beautiful job of keeping the sound natural and letting the tunes take centre stage.