Begley is also a fine singer with a robust, conversational way of putting across a lyric and he was ideally accompanied in both endeavours by Tim Edey, whose finger-style nylon-strung guitar playing variously drives, caresses and highlights rhythms, melodies and phrasing to make music that’s weighty in terms of character but light enough to fly.
Begley and Edey were only Vallely’s friends by extension as far as programming went, but they complemented him by offering a smooth passage into traditional style tunes that quickly developed a ruggedly compelling improvisatory quality over jazz-derived grooves from the piano, guitar and bodhran rhythm section.
The central plank of the set was The Red Tree, a composition for concertina and seven-piece string section, but it was Vallely’s electronically-enhanced accompaniment of his wife Karan Casey’s impassioned eulogising of James Connolly, however, and the inventive, sparse and spidery cello-piano duet behind Casey’s Love is Pleasin’ that stood out strongest alongside the opening salvo.
Sponsored by Scottish Power.
Star rating: ***
