Rialta 2000

The west has truly awoken us with these two excellent compilations hitting the racks simultaneously.

New Horizons is a double CD of 40 tracks recorded live for Galway Bay FM's In-studio Sessions and masterminded by the unstoppable Jon Richards. It ranges over a healthy diet of established acts of the calibre of Kristin Hersh, The Four Of Us, Dean Friedman, Siniad Lohan, Kila and Eleanor McEvoy, alongside emerging artists like Ruth Dillon, Juliet Turner, Sarah Lynch, Charis and others.

As with all such anthologies everybody will have their loves and loathes, but between 'Reckless' by The Devlins and 'Tuesday Night Is Karaoke Night' by Anthony John Clarke there's enough to tempt the most demanding palate. Of the newer tracks, the real gems include Sean Crosson's 'Mirror', Junior Thomson's rattling blues workout on 'Daddy's On A Roll', Ruth Dillon's '1000 Shades Of Blue', Fiona McMahon's no-nonsense 'I Don't Know You' and the magnificent Orangewood's 'This Is 4 You'.

The very existence of this record, never mind its superb quality and the fact that proceeds are in aid of the Galway Rape Crisis Centre, should serve as a lesson to those sad people in local radio (and in RTE) who see radio as nothing more than an advertising medium.

Rialta 2000 is based on the annual Rialta song competition organised by Raidio na Gaeltachta to encourage songwriters to compose in Irish. All ten of this year's finalists are included, as well as the five previous winners - and it makes a stimulating if mixed listening experience.

Melanie O'Reilly's contribution of the gentle folksy 'Amhran na Milaoise' is as outstanding as you would expect from a singer of her calibre and that track plus the vocal harmonies on John Spillane's 'Rugadh Orm i gCorcaigh' are almost worth the CD price alone. But the real find is Cliodhna Ni Mhurchu, who possesses a magnificently pliable jazz-blues voice and whose confident handling of 'Seachain An Omche' proves that here is one genre, other than trad/folk, where the first language sits quite comfortably if in the right hands.

One might be less enthusiastic about the rocked up 'Colm de Bhailis' by Joe Mhaolain, while the jury is still out on the 1995 winner 'An Dreoilin' by Sean Monaghan. But the rock ballad 'Fill A Rzn' really works.

All in all Rialta 2000 is a valuable effort, proving again what those with passion and commitment in radio can do for Irish music.