Louth flute player and singer Nuala Kennedy trades in a subtlety that's all too rare among debutantes eager to flounce and shimmy when they come within shouting distance of the recording studio. Kennedy possesses a languid flute style, unhurried yet freewheeling, loose-limbed yet disciplined. She breathes fresh life into the well-worn Hop Jig (with her cap duly doffed to Lunasa) and straddles the Cape Bretonesque Dolphin School (with wonderfully scratchy melodeon from Julian Sutton) and the Scots trio Slippy with the effortlessness of a musician who's no stranger to cross-fertilisation. Kennedy doesn't so much imbibe or inhale as swallow, whole and unadulterated, melodic and rhythmic influences from beyond her kith and kin.  From the sinuous opening jig, The Pink Flamingo, Kennedy's flute wraps serpentine-like around Claire Mann's fellow flute and Marc Clement's fine fingered guitar lines.  She is not only an exceptional interpreter of the tradition: her own tunes glisten with freshness, and the closing duo, responsible for the CD' s title are masterclasses in inventive canoodling, with Sutton's The Buddha's Delight betraying more than a passing acquaintance with Mel Mercier and Micheal O Suilleabhain's Music Be More Crispy. Kennedy's Seachdain nan Deuchainn and El Paso suggest a life bathed in sounds, from llihies to Andalucia and on to Ankara, with barely a beat skipped en route from one to the next.  And, as if her flute playing wasn't spellbinding enough, Nuala Kennedy has the audacity to secrete a few songs into the mix, her voice a natural, earthy instrument entirely in concert with her woody flute lines.  Her plainsong treatment of Cait i nGarrain a Bhile should be on every traditional singing primer, free as it is of the vocal quirks and chinks that can unhinge the finest of singers when they attempt to take a hold of songs with a history such as this.  A final hidden track suggests the strangest kinship with Bjork at her irrespressible best. A dazzling debut. 

“…immense talent and experience... outstanding and highly recommended – Alex Monaghan, Irish Music Magazine May 2007

The Scots-domiciled Irish lassie's first 'solo' album is a real beauty, due in no small part to the superb musical partnerships with fellow flute player and singer Claire Mann (who also plays fiddle here) and the other half dozen great players, including guests Cathal McConnell and Canadian Daniel Lapp. The CD is unmistakably traditional in sensibility. Kennedy has an original and highly accomplished sound on the wooden flute, and a simple, sensitive and beguiling way with a song.
Norman Chalmers