Liam O'Connor & Sean McKeon: Dublin Made Me

LIAM O'CONNOR & SEAN McKEON:

DUBLIN MADE ME

Liam O'Connor: fiddle, viola

Sean McKeon: uilleann pipes

Ciaran Mordaunt: percussion

It may be just mere coincidence that, almost exactly 30 years ago, a remarkable fiddle and pipes duet album entitled "Doublin'" was released by two formidable young Dublin musicians named Paddy Glackin and Paddy Keenan. Very much like them, the two young musicians heard on this exceptional new CD were both raised in Dublin, and are heirs of a great musical legacy, one resulting from the confluence of family traditions and influences from the vital Dublin music scene. Liam O’Connor (fiddle, viola) is the son of Mick O’Connor, a famed flute player who was a member of the Castle Ceili Band, and Sean McKeon (uilleann pipes) is the son of well-known piper Gay McKeon, and brother of Conor McKeon, also a piper, with whom he recorded the excellent album “The Dusty Miller” a year ago or so. Both young players show themselves to be worthy of this legacy, and then some. Liam O’Connor is a remarkably agile player who seems to take after Sean Keane in his effort to make the fiddle sound somewhat like a set of pipes, while Sean McKeon, who appears to have studied the "Dead Sea scrolls" of Irish piping, specifically the Irish-American piping style from the early 1900s, is positively “channeling” the great Patsy Touhey. Not only are the two players gifted with impressive technical skills, but they sound like they were intent on going all out rather than play it safe. The result is music which, warts and all (not that there are too many), sounds fresh, genuine, heartfelt, spontaneous, and in the end profoundly human, qualities which, in our age of sophisticated studio electronics, too often disappear under the weight of misdirected production. There is no doubt in my mind that this is the "Doublin'" of our time, and more. What an amazing album!

Rating: **** 1/2

Price: $24.99 Recommended