Collaborations

It says Collaborations on the CD case and collaborations are exactly what you get inside, as some of the finest Irish independent artists from the rock spectrum team up with their dance contemporaries. The end result is an album that is a music collector’s wet dream, with enough mouth-watering partnerships to keep most music fans happy.

Juliet Turner belies her girl-next-door image, thanks to Razor’s scratchy hip-hop beats and lyrics like “Lick the salt from my face with your rough lion’s tongue”. Decal don’t change that much of Sack’s ‘Adventura Majestica’, subscribing to the old ‘if it ain’t broke’ theory, merely adding a few menacing keyboard effects and echoey vocals to the fray. Likewise, Jimmy Behan seems a graduate of the ‘less is more’ school of remixes, barely manipulating Nina Hynes’ already brilliant ‘Tenderness’. On the other hand, Paul O’Donoghue’s mix-work gives a sense of immediacy to Kila’s bittersweet ‘Cardinal Knowledge’, where past and present collide in a seamless blend of liquid basslines and traditional flowlines.

‘Cabassa’, by Glen Hansard and Deacy, is one of the more unusual offerings, the Frames man sounding uncharacteristically muted over a slow, hypnotic backbeat that’s been singed by the swirls of the middle-east: the ultimate slow-mover, this one takes a while to work its willowy charms on your ears.

Elsewhere, Kittser and Donncha Costello come over all dewy eyed on the so-laid-back-it’s-horizontal ‘Coming Gone’. ‘Happy’ by Mocrac and Cathy Davy sounds like The Sundays in their prime. Xpat adds urgency to Jack L’s gorgeous ‘Rooftop Lullaby’, while Pharmacy and Aslan’s version of ‘Hurts Sometimes’ proves that Christy Dignam is one of the most unique vocalists this country has ever produced, no matter what genre of music he happens to be singing along with. Less successful, however, is Ambulance’s complete rewrite of BellX1’s powerful ‘Snakes And Snakes’, which isn’t bad as dreamy soundscapes go, but is completely unrecognisable from the band’s original.

The real highlights here include the Bass Odyssey boys lending their beats ‘n’ pieces to Mundy’s ‘Raining Down’, where both parties truly complement each other. Then you have The Walls and Glen Brady’s take on the former’s ‘Bone Deep’, which is transformed into a wonderfully fluid, swinging Beck-like affair that is crying out for massive radio play and has international hit single written all over it.

With 16 songs and all proceeds going to the Chernobyl Children’s Project this is value for money in anybody’s book and there is enough genuine quality on offer to make it worth the dent in your wallet.