Hunger of the Skin

Hunger of the Skin finds Flook flautist Brian Finnegan putting COVID-19 lockdown purdah to scintillating use with a firing-on-all-cylinders set. Recorded in his own home and via remote collaborations with 24 others, it's a belting collection of nine confinement-denying instrumentals (three of which feature spoken poetry) charged with a driving thirst and fierce hunger for connection and communication. Those urges translate into a vivid, celebratory immediacy lifted by a crack cabal of musicians playing with improvisatory energy and an impeccable sense of ensemble.

Co-produced by Finnegan with multi-instrumentalist and Beoga frontman Seán Óg Graham, the album is an exhilarating whirlwind with Finnegan's virtuosic flute at its centre. He's first among equals here with vivid contributions from the likes of Melvin Ifill on steel pans, trombonists Anton Boiarskikh and Paul Dunlea, and Sheema Mukherjee's sitar and vocals on the hypnotic ‘Chase the Shouting Wind’. There's a persuasively handled eclecticism throughout, poet Gearóid MacLochlainn's voice on ‘Dust/An Damhsa Dubh’ an incantatory prayer within a swirling accompaniment accented by electronic loops, percussion and banjo. Released as a single last year, the combustible ‘Flow, In the Year of Wu Wei’ was deservingly nominated for an RTÉ Radio 1 Folk Award.