The Cork flute player Conal Ó Gráda has carved out a singular voice in traditional music, one which is as solid and as grainy as the wood of the instrument. His is a style that is fully integrated with and idiomatic of the wooden flute, where the rhythm, articulation and interpretation all stem from the interaction between the player and the possibilities of the instrument. His previous solo albums, both highly regarded, focused on traditional tunes, but he has been playing his own compositions for many years now in performances, with the band The Raw Bar Collective, and his music has been featured on the ITMA Saothar showcase. For his new album, Anú Abú, which is released on Raelach Records, Ó Gráda has adopted an approach that has become more common over the past few decades in traditional music, and put together a set comprised only of tunes that he has composed himself.

An album of new compositions is always exciting and fresh, and gives the listener a real sense of discovery. At the same time, it asks a lot of the listener, in the sense that these tunes haven’t yet laid down familiar aural grooves in our musical memory, so that our appraisal of processual features of interpretation and performance has to compete with our own internal mapping of the tune. As I got to grips with this recording, it became evident how close an integration there was between Ó Gráda’s flute style and the style of the compositions. The shape of the tunes stem from his style, allowing his punchy and percussive articulation, driving rhythm, and his signature powerful tone to come to the fore. Perhaps even on a more fundamental level, these are always tunes that are built on the ergonomics of the instrument, bringing out the musical shapes and sounds that the flute affords.

The recording begins with two robust reels (‘Benny’s Gone to Vegas’ and ‘Fuip Out the Bugle’) which show off Ó Gráda’s punchy rhythmic style to great effect. In the first tune, more percussive repeated notes are contrasted with occasional long notes, which allow him to give full vent to his powerful tone; the second is a classic flute tune in G, most of it in the higher register with lots of space for ornamentation. The three jigs that follow also display this alignment of style and form. ‘Nóta Stóta’, like several other tunes on the album (including the third jig of the set), has a second part (or ‘turn’) that shifts away from the key of the first part – its repeated phrases build up to a long high B that leads into a characteristic flute trill. ‘Budgie’s Ball’ is another high-register G major tune, leading into the quirkier and wittily chromatic ‘An Seachrán Sí’.

Across the album there is a great variety of dance tunes; unusually there is only one further reel set, ‘Kung Fu Katie’ and ‘The Karate Kid’, both of which Ó Gráda has been playing and teaching for several years. I particularly liked the two hop jigs, the first of which (‘The Humours of Pluto’) is very much a flute tune with a lot of high Ds, which might not translate well to other instruments. There are also two great slides, whose persistent (and melodically economic) repeated phrases produce the drive and lift needed for set dancing. There is further contrast in three new slow airs. The first, ‘Tairngreacht na Caillí Duibhe’, is solemn and stark, its angular leaps relatively unadorned. A different approach is used in ‘Caoineadh Chúm Na nÉag’, which begins with highly ornamented short phrases, and is more regular in its rhythm. This makes for an easy transition into the march, ‘Céim Gharbh na Marbh’, which is subtly coloured by Benny McCarthy’s accordion chords. There are two other marches on the album, ‘Tan Ann’ and ‘Teacht Mhíl Espáinne’, where the combination of double-tracked fifes or high-pitched flutes with drummer and percussionist Caitríona Frost produces a sound evocative of fife and drum bands of the past. The unusual tuning of the flute used for the marches gives these an otherworldly sound, in keeping with the track’s reference to the mythical Milesians. Frost’s marimba also helps to create the whimsy of the final ‘Yahú’, filling in the tune’s sudden pauses. More generally, the main backing duties are shouldered by two familiar musicians: Caoimhin Ó Fearghail alternates between bouzouki and guitar, occasionally joining in with the tune on the latter instrument (as for instance on ‘Nóta Stóta’). Colm Ó Murchú, a regular partner of Ó Gráda, anchors many of the sets with sturdy bodhrán.

This is a fine album of new flute music, which is seamless in its knitting together of playing technique and compositional style. While it certainly delivers on its promise of musical discovery, it does so through structures that are totally familiar, as the dance tunes are all very playable – and indeed danceable. It’s also welcome to have a complete set of tunes composed on flute (not to overlook Fintan Vallely’s recent album Merrijig Creek), given how often the figure of ‘composer’ in traditional music is associated with the fiddle and button accordion, and it should be a useful resource for flute players (and others of course) in the years to come.

Anú Abú by Conal Ó Gráda is available from Raelach Records. Visit https://raelachrecords.bandcamp.com/album/an-ab.