Mary Ann Kennedy: An Dàn

ARC Music

Subtitled Gaelic Songs for a Modern

World, this is one from the heart, as the singer and broadcaster performs her engagingly melodic settings of recent Gaelic poetry as well as lyrics of her own – including the opening

Seinn, Horo, Sein, which finely expresses her commitment to Gaelic song as an ongoing culture. Couched in instrumentation ranging from electric guitar and samples to strings and choir, these songs encompass diverse influences: Òran do dh’iain

Dòmhnallach, for instance, matches a eulogy for a great uncle who vanished into the maw of the Great War with an African work song; another saluting the same great-uncle, Iain Againn Fhìn, is poised in delicate counterpoint to a well-known Tiree song. Kennedy gives eloquent voice to lines by such respected poets as Aonghas “Dubh” Macneacail and Aonghas Pàdraig Caimbeul, while George Campbell Hay’s Air Leathad

Slèibhe beautifully evokes the poet’s “perfect moment” in the hills, amid echoes and softly chiming guitar. ■