29th September 1999
TIM O'SHEA & FRIENDS
Fair Dawning (Lackeen Records)
SELDOM DO you encounter recordings that are both as scholarly and lovingly honed as this. More seldom do you trip across a debut as assured and considered as Fair Dawning.
Tim O'Shea is a singer and guitarist from Killarney. There's a rawness to the arrangements on Fair Dawning that bespeaks of a love of the session and a refreshing unfamiliarity with mixing desks. Whether by accident or design, O'Shea's music is laid down in its bare naked form, probably as true to its origins as it could possibly be in the confines of a studio.
The tunes here are electric, the songs rigorously trimmed to the bone. "Man of the House/The Tap Room" is a fine example of a well chosen pairing of the funereal and the loping, with plenty of air bubbles in both to allow fiddle and guitar to exchange lifelines with precision timing.
The songs, too earn their keep. At times O'Shea's vocals suggest an early Paul Brady, particularly on "Welcoming Paddy Home".His unassuming style lends a lightness of touch that tiptoes over what could otherwise have been lumbering lyrics, and with fiddle and concertina tickling at the edges, there's never a chance to loll in the doldrums or cumbersome arrangements.
Fair Dawning is a fine debut from a fine collection of musicians.
Siobhan Long 10/12
