Waterfjord

With the title of his third album Matti Kallio playfully honours his origins while tipping his hat to a long love affair. He's a Finnish accordion player, now based in Iceland. A classically trained pianist, Kallio has written and arranged jazz pieces and film music and appeared on more than 200 albums. But all the while he has nurtured his love for Irish music.

Waterfjord, recorded in producer Benny McCarthy's (of Danú) studio in County Waterford, is an album of Irish tunes, mostly traditional – and a few of Kallio's own. He begins boisterously with a set of reels, ‘Trip to Cullenstown / Game of Love / Launching the Boat’, that segue neatly. One of the album's joys is the careful tune selections; they fit one with another. Kallio works his way round the forms, with some jigs and polkas, ending with ‘Metsäkukkia’, a famous Finnish waltz. Kallio's own compositions are different but, like stepping stones in a fast flowing stream, fitting. ‘Valo’ is warmly meditative, ‘The Snowy Mountain’ elegiac. Kallio's fluid button accordion playing is augmented by Tony Byrne (guitar), Liam Flanagan (fiddle), and Colm Murphy (bodhrán). They strike the right balance: attentive, sensitive, but never overbearing.