Traditional Irish Music And Song

This wildly talented young all-female sextet came together in the spring of 2004 when its members were students at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance at the University of Limerick. Since then they’ve won awards at both the Lorient Interceltic Festival and the International Pan Celtic Festival – and deservedly so, to judge by their just-released debut CD. They’re blessed with an abundance of ability in both the vocal and instrumental departments, but it’s in the deployment of those resources that they really excel. ‘P Stands For Paddy’ gets a nifty a cappella choral treatment that involves countermelodies as well as harmonies, with two contrasting voices taking turns at lead vocal, while on instrumental numbers, the constant shifts of line-up hold the listener’s interest. In the absence of a conventional backing instrument (such as guitar or piano), fiddles, harp and accordion make use of a varied palette of drones, chords and ostinatos to provide well thought-out accompaniment to songs and tunes alike.