DAVY SPILLANE: “A Place Among The Stones” (Columbia)

THERE IS some music which develops a life-force, far beyond the terms of its own existence. It’s a gift to which only the few are privy: within the Irish experience Seasamh Ó hÉanaí had it, Van Morrison has it in abundance, as did Sean Ó Riada.

Davy Spillane also works the oracle, his creativity constantly calling up new aural challenges, demanding of the listener that they take the experience that little bit further both within and outside themselves.

‘A Place Among The Stones’ continues a journey of discovery which Spillane began not just with Moving Hearts or ‘Atlantic Bridge’ some years ago, but with his tenure as an apprentice pipe-maker in Conhaltas in the mid-seventies, where he literally looked to, and found, the crucial instrument of his musical inspiration. And still one feels, having listened to this album – less immediate perhaps than some of its predecessors, though that in itself is not a criticism – that this is nowhere near the apogee, that there is so much more to come from this man.

A Place Among The Stones offers plenty to be going on with. Máire Brennan’s contribution to the title track is among the best work she’s done in recent times, and the sheer ethereal beauty of ‘Western Whisper’ with Mike Nolan’s sparse flugel-horn and Greg Boland’s guitar work is positively transcendent.

The music on this album is layered and textured – never bland, though – each crack and crevice, each stratum, yielding up something new. Even ‘Forever Frozen’ Spillane’s collaboration with Sonny Condell, with Steve Winwood on vocals, feels connected and has a valid place in the order of things. And that, ultimately is what this album is all about – a journey in common cause to face a plethora of questions, a shared experience which involves the listener almost as much as it does the musicians. These days, there aren’t too many albums about which that can be said.

Beautiful music, which disturbs and enthrals in equal measure. Listen well; you will not remain indifferent.

• Oliver P. Sweeney