HADA TO HADA: (An Beal Bocht, Dublin)

HADA TO HADA play like their life depended on it. And it does. Exorcising both demons and doubts onto us shapeless, formless faces is what keeps Kieran Duddy and Co. on the straight and narrow – of sorts. Erotic and blissfully virginal at one and the same time, it’s music to cleanse and replenish the soul, rhythms to soothe aches and gather scattered thoughts.

Hada To Hada are a quartet who’ve seen more than one incarnation, but anchored to the stable elements of songwriter and mainman Duddy and sax layer, Belinda Morris they’ve steered a dramatic and unpredictable course along the lee tide where truth and beauty are not to be bartered for a few measly record company ducats.

Independence has had its own rewards too. The songs whisper of a literacy level generally conspicuous by its absence from music by, of and for the people. Take ‘Primo Levi’, for example. Far from an ode to his first pair of 501’s (groan), it’s a hymn to the individual, with a holocaust survivor playing the role of devil’s advocate to Duddy’s incessant questioning of the nature of what courage (and blame) are.

Relative newcomer Paul O’Driscoll’s wonderful double bass adds depth and shade where there was once an overabundance of higher frequencies; stalwart Nollaig Bridgeman brushes past bongos and cymbals with an enviable casualness that betrays little of his illustrious resumé and much of his appreciation of the finer principles in percussion – while Duddy and Morris let the music talk for itself, whether it be through Belinda’s death knell claves soldering a funereal rhythm to ‘Sharon Gregg’ or Kieran’s sensuous declamatory statements on the fundamentals of love lost and found.

Hada To Hada come laden with some pretty sharp lasers that cut to the quick without apology. Like aromatherapy it enveigles itself past the senses before you know what’s hit you. And it lingers long after the last pint’s pulled. Worth a return trip. And another. And . . .

• Siobhan Long