Liag

Here's something to relish: three musicians at the top of their games – Dermot Byrne (accordion), Éamonn Coyne (tenor banjo), John Doyle (guitar, bouzouki and mandola) – playing as one in a treasure trove of largely overlooked instrumentals and songs from Byrne's native south-west Donegal. Accumulated from the trio's countless festival appearances together over more than 30 years, Liag (pronounced ‘league’) sets off at a merry pace, sets of jigs and reels dispatched with an almost casual but rhythmically alert flair. Several pieces serve as tributes to local fiddle legends Francie Dearg Byrne, John Doherty (not least the buoyant, infectious lilt of ‘JD's ‘Untitled’ Mazurka’) and others with new material securely rooted in clearly ingrained Donegal traditions.

Doyle's virtuosic ‘Stone Mountain’ magically conjures the mighty cliffsided edifice that provides the album's title while his forlorn song ‘Duffy's Cut: Mile 59’ offers a new take on the traditional trope of forced emigration. Of the familiar pieces, Doyle treats the Napoleon-in-exile song ‘St Helena’ to a plaintive vocal treatment, ‘Bríd Óg Ní Mháile’ affectingly cast as a lamenting air with Byrne's exquisitely keening accordion. Impressive throughout is the relaxed reciprocity of the playing, Doyle and Coyne's strings weaving themselves around Byrne's accordion to seamless, wholly satisfying effect.