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Córas Trio — Córas Trio
(Bandcamp Coracle CR002, 2024, CD / LP / DL)

by Peter Thelen, Published 2024-08-23

Córas Trio Cover art

Belfast’s Córas Trio, on their debut album, offer an interesting and engaging mix of Irish traditional music, free jazz, and electronic music, without vocals. The first thing one hears on the opening track “Jackie Fitzpatrick's” is the fiddle of Kevin McCullagh and the rich connection this music has to history, but as the piece proceeds it’s drummer Conor McAuley’s brisk free jazz playing that demands the listener’s attention; the third piece of the puzzle is acoustic guitarist Paddy McKeown who surrounds the other two and takes the fabric of the song in different directions as it evolves improvisationally. On later tracks both McKeown and McCullagh will contribute electronics to the group’s sound as well, but before we get to that, the trio puts forth the beautiful and sensitive “Tommy Peoples',” a piece that sounds far more composed than improvised, and for his part McAuley stays in the background with his drum contribution, allowing the guitar and fiddle to engage one another tastefully. The question of improvised versus composed comes up a lot throughout the album’s eight tracks, and sometimes its answer is obvious, but other times the improvs (if they indeed are) seem pretty well planned or pre-rehearsed, either way the group does a splendid job of making music that is at once interesting as well as easy on the ears, while never appearing simple or bland — there is always something developing, evolving, and stirring the soul. The first noticeable evidence of electronics comes in the form of gentle backing sounds on “George White's,” caressing the guitar and fiddle as they wander through busy portals created by the drums, but the first really avant-garde piece is “The Roscommon,” which delivers little morcels of interesting sounds from drums and guitar with the fiddle wildly dancing around the proceedings, leading forward to “Julia Delaney's,” a piece that dives headfirst into the electronics, with loops seemingly applied to both fiddle and guitar, until both come out with more evident gestures after the midpoint, but throughout there is hardly any percussion. All taken, this imaginitive debut by Córas Trio has plenty to offer that hasn’t been heard before.

Filed under: New releases, 2024 releases

Related artist(s): Córas Trio

More info
http://corastrio.bandcamp.com/album/c-ras-trio

 

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