Alex Monaghan

Review by Alex Monaghan

I haven't had so much fun from a CD in years. A Lovely Madness is a joy from start to finish. Following in the footsteps of Reeltime and North Cregg, and touching the greatness of La Bottine Souriante and The Old Rope String Band, Beoga show how much life and exuberance can be injected into traditional music by a bunch of mad Bs. Here, B stands for box-players (two of them: Sean Og Graham and Damian McKee), bodhránist (Eamon Murray) and backing keyboards-player (Liam Bradley).

Basically this is accordion music, A Lovely Madness if ever there was one. There are bits of Astor Piazzola's bandoneon tango mastery, bits of Quebecois squeezery, a large dollop of Sliabh Luachra wizardry, and not a little Beoga alchemy to make the whole thing zing. As Sandy Brechin put it, "It's accordion music, Jim, but not as we know it." The sound is spectacular from the off, Kerry polkas meeting Paris Rive Gauche on Prelude Polka. The boys can do slow and soulful too: the languid slip-jig Soggy's is a muted masterpiece, and The Solid Man is one of those haunting slow airs which seem so simple once someone writes them down. In between, Beoga squeeze out a range of tunes and tempos from Riverdance to Porgy & Bess: the 12/8 jig Exploding Bow, the offbeat reel Beoga, the slow drag Funk in Class, and a couple of big bouncy hornpipes. They also do totally trad as well as anyone, perfectly demonstrated on Jack Maguire's Reel and The Heathery Breeze.

Beoga's material comes mainly from the twisted minds of Damian and Sean Og, who contribute fifteen tunes between them. The other eight are mainly traditional. There's a heavy bias towards hornpipes at various tempos, which is fine by me: hornpipes and squeezeboxes were made for each other, and the humble hornpipe deserves at least as much respect as the revered reel. All in all, A Lovely Madness has to be on anyone's list for outstanding traditional music. Catch them live, or browse through www.beogamusic.com for more info.