Rubai

While the current Irish folk scene seems, with maybe one or two notable exceptions, to be treading water, now’s perhaps an appropriate time to glance across the water at bands like Flook who are bringing an inventive joy to the contemporary folk genre.

Their latest opus Rubai offers fourteen exuberant helpings of smooth playing and mesmerising tunes with not a vocal within earshot, just four musicians and their cohorts playing with one miraculous mind to brew up a fiendish stew that is way more than the sum of its parts.

Brian Finnegan and Sarah Allen lead the way, their flute-playing driving each other to new levels of dexterity. Ed Boyd’s guitar supplies a driving rhythmic pulse, while John Joe Kelly’s bodhran kicks up a veritable Sahara of dust as required. Guest musicians include Martin Cradick on wah-wah mandolin (I kid you not), Seckou Keita on shaker and sogo and Colin Farrell on fiddle.

With such versatility on hand, Flook are free to cool it, as on the sensuous ‘Baldy Hollow’, but also know when to let rip, as they do with ‘Pressed For Time’. They instinctively know when to be tight (‘The Beehive’) and to loosen up as occasion demands, as it does for ‘Granny In The Attic’, a tune blessed with Rory McLeod’s evocative trombone. But they can also do sensitivity, especially for the beautiful Graecian ‘Kalamantinos’, and they can apply several pairs of wellies too – see ‘Ramnee Ceilidh’.

Never mind end of year lists. Rubai should be on your shopping menu now.