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IRISH MUSIC MAGAZINE
July’07: beoga mischief
The buzz on Beoga has been building for a while. Sad to say, I missed their first CD, A Lovely Madness. So, hearing the new CD Mischief for the first time was a lot like coming into a huge hooley in full swing. The opening set gets you right into the spirit with the jovial Eppleborn Dance -off morphing into the title track with a mysterious morse code backdrop, it’s out of the box eclectic. Both tunes were written by one of the band’s two box players, Damian McKee.
Kick in the Box continues the fun with Luka’s Wake from Niamh Dunne before Sean Og Graham’s mazy track opens with bopping boxes and culminates in a full force philharmonic with massed strings, brass, and smouldering sax. Ryan’s Air is a sweet tune about an unhappy event that befell Graham’s guitar on a certain low-cost airline that bursts into Beoga on Ice, a happier event in Austria.
The songs are the province of Niamh Dunne, who is a relative newcomer to the band who can also make the fiddle sing. Factory Girl gets a jaunty makeover from a Rita Connolly version that I recall and there’s a respectful renewal of Dirty Work, the old Steely Dan standard. Please Don’t Talk about me When I’m Gone was popular back when Michael Coleman was still recording in New York. It has some pedigree for a pop song having been recorded by, among others, Louis Armstrong, Arlo Guthrie and Ella Fitzgerald. On A Delicate Thing, from the pen of Johnny Duhan, the arrangement has tasteful echoes of Dolores Keane’s version of The Island. (Indeed Dunne’s stirring and vigorous vocals manage to cover the spectrum from Dolores Keane to Mary Coughlan on this album.)
The contending accordions of Graham & McKee are to the fore especially on Trolleyed, Micky The Pipes, and Cu Chullain’s Despair. The band is rounded out by bodhrán player, Eamon Murray and keyboardist, Liam Bradley. Jazzy Wilbur emerged from the heads of Murray and Graham and it’s paired with The Narrowback at Mick McAuley’s suggestion, a man who knows a thing or two about making great sets.
Another Journey closes the album. Composed by Graham, it owes some debt to Bill Whelan’s Seville Suite, but it’s a lovely piece. Mischief is a journey juiced with Joie de Vivre, a jambalaya of sounds, a tasty stew of various elements deliciously blended. It’s a concoction that could fly off in a million disparate directions but not when it’s anchored by superb musicians with educated ears.
It’s a dream of an album, you know, the one where you catch a bus to Bundoran and get off in Buenos Aires where the Prague Philharmonic greets you. Their musical approach is fresh enough to merit a new term but until something better comes along, let’s call it Beoga-Woogie?
Tom Clancy
