EVERY SO often there comes along a record that you know, you just know, is destined to become a lifetime favourite. The Bothy Band's debut was one: Martin Hayes' eponymous debut is another such album.

These days, the Clare-born fiddler plies his trade in Chicago; the album, however bears no trace of an Illinois accent, carrying instead the hallmarks of all that is good about Clare fiddling - the clean open bowing, the lyrical, free playing style. It wasn't of course from the wind that he got it - his father P.J. Hayes, and uncle Paddy Canny are both fiddlers of the first water and his own pedigree reads like an honour roll.

As to the music, it is for the greater part comprised of jigs and reels, many of them well known pieces, but shot through with such flair and brilliance as to have been almost re-invented. His playing style is open and unhurried, redolent in places of Kevin Burke, but if anything even more relaxed. Hayes has invested pieces like 'The Colliers' and 'Johnny's Wedding' with a freshness that is well nigh stunning, and is oh so tastefully accompanied by guitarist Randal Bays on many cuts throughout the record.

I'm no Nostradamus, but I'd be willing to predict, without much fear of contradiction, that this splendid album will be high on 'best of' lists come year's end. Nothing quite like it has come my way this year. "Martin Hayes" is the kind of album that renders superlatives redundant, and language inadequate.

* Oliver P. Sweeney