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Setanta
(Finn MacGinty, Dale Russ, Hanz Araki)
Traditional Irish music
A new band by this talented
trio who have been touring regularly in the Pacific Northwest and
Japan. Dale Russ is one of America's foremost Irish fiddle players,
known recently for his recordings with Finn on North
Amerikay and with piper Todd Denman on Reeds
and Rosin. Finn MacGinty, from Co. Westmeath, Ireland is a longtime
band-mate of Dale's from the Suffering Gaels and is known for his
lighthearted songsmanship and on-the-money guitar accompaniment. Hanz
Araki rounds out the trio as a soulful singer and Irish flute player.
MP3 Music Clips
The Blue Eyed Girl/The Red Door Reels
(original tunes by Dale Russ, performed by Dale Russ on fiddle &
Finn MacGinty, guitar)
Tunes
1 Slip Jig and Reels - song
2 Sean Bui/Wallop the Cat from Under the Table/The Legacy - jigs
3 Albatross - song
4 The Blue Eyed Girl/The Red Door - reels
5 Paddy Fahy's/The Tailor's Twist - hornpipes
6 Bogie's Bonnie Belle - song
7 The Gold Ring - jig
8 Rocking the Cradle - air
9 Tom Billy's/Kevin Keegan's - waltzes
10 Gan Ainm/O'Keefe's - slides
11 The Road to Drumleman - song
12 The Yellow Tinker/The Jolly Tinker/The Crooked Road - reels
13 Don't Call Again/The Return Home - song
Reviews
Fiddler Dale Russ has added to an already lustrous discography with
yet another superb recording. This time it's Setanta, a trio disc
that also features flute player/singer Hanz Araki and guitarist/singer
Finn Mac Ginty. As on Russ and MacGinty's North Amerikay, the liner
notes are bilingual. Not Irish and English - Japanese and English.
That's because Russ & Co. have become minor celebrities in Japan,
where the audience for traditional Irish music has been growing tremendously
in recent years. You don't have to be Japanese to be impressed with
Setanta, however. "On the Fiddle" is a real sucker for flute and fiddle
duets, and Setanta features some of the best of these you're likely
to hear this year. Russ's fiddling is, as always, awesome. Araki started
his musical career on the Japanese shakuhachi, another sort of keyless
wooden flute, but has pretty much mastered the Irish variety as well.
Both he and Mac Ginty (the only true Irishman of the trio) contribute
excellent songs, including an Araki cover of "Albatross," a composition
of Dublin-born New Yorker Susan McKeown.
- Don Meade, The Irish Voice
Setanta was the youth name of Ireland's Cuchuliann, the epic hero
of the Tain, but this traditional band personifies musical range that
comes from maturity and playing together over the years. Seattleites
Finn Mac Ginty on vocals and acoustic guitar, Dale Russ on fiddle,
and Hanz Araki on flutes and vocals serve up a frothy mix of songs,
waltzes, reels, jigs, a slide and an air. The set opens with the contemporary
"The Slip Jigs and Reels" with Mac Ginty in fine voice trading
off verses with Araki. The Steve Tilson-penned song tells a Billy
the Kid kind of story of an Irish immigrant who turns gunfighter and
meets his fate in Santa Fe. The group steps further out of the tradition
on a terrific rendition of "Albatross," Susan McKeown's
poignant song of suffocating love based on the imagery of the Coleridge
poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." Setanta's ability
to explore the full range of emotional feeling is shown beautifully
in three instrumentals at the center of the album, starting with the
happy jig "The Gold Ring" with Araki's flute fairly shimmering.
The melancholic air, "Rocking the Cradle" follows, with
Russ's fiddle delicately controlled, yet powered with considerable
use of harmony and slurs to give a dark edge to the tune. The sequence
finishes with two waltzes ("Tom Billy's/Kevin Keegan's")
that put me in mind of easy sauntering around Green Lake on a sunny
September day. This is a fine debut album from three of the west coast's
best traditional musicians.
- Bill Compton, Victory Music Review
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