MUSE, 2000/2001, Mic Moroney
“They say we all tend to end up
doing something which earned us praise as children, and this
very fine debut album by 22-year-old uileann piper
Flaithrí Neff sees him delivering on his promise as a
kid who played solo pipes in front of a full orchestra in
Lorient, to say nothing of bagging ten All Ireland Fleadh
Cheoil titles between the ages of fourteen and eighteen. Joined
here by his equally auspicious twenty year-old
fiddler-brüdder, Eoghan, there’s something
unassailable in the pair’s rock-hard unison, with some of
that heads-down, hard-knuckles Paddy Glackin/Paddy Keenan
chemistry of the early Bothy Band ... The boys play solo too:
Eoghan’s singy, breathing, melancholic rendition of the
“Caoineadh Uí Néill”; or
Flaithrí’s rangy hornpipes (“Dinny
O’Brien’s and Chief O’Neill’s
Favourite”), pitch-bending the drones and regulators as
he prosecutes the tune hard and straight-ahead, eschewing the
current vogue of jazzification for the earthier philosophy of
“hang her out and let her rip”.”
Soundpost and Bridle
Ar Scåth a Chéile
Performance