NINE WASSIES FROM BAINNE/IARLA O LIONAIRD

NINE WASSIES FROM BAINNE/IARLA O LIONAIRD (Whelan’s, Dublin)

IF JOHNNY Thunders sang ‘Born To Lose’, Giordai O Laoghaire was surely born to confuse. Bland disc-jockeys get rightly reviled for their spray-on mid-Atlantic accents but Nine Wassies From Bainne are furiously and fascinatingly paddling their canoe between Greenwich Village and the West Cork Gaeltacht. Who says John Zorn and Seán Ó Riada can’t shake hands and dance?

Tonight might just have been one of those legendary local dates the audience will forever recall. One reason it was special was that Nine Wassies are open-minded and smart enough to know that the way to boost attendances is to combine two apparently alien audiences so these conjurers of Gaelic chatterbox funk-fusion draw in another constituency by giving the support spot to West Cork sean-nos singer, Iarla O Lionaird.

Such cross-fertilisation was a Sixties and Seventies constant but now it’s an unfortunate exception. Yet if his elaborate introductions meet with some shuffling, there’s perfect silence for O Lionaird’s three songs even if most of the audience has mislaid what little Irish was caned into them at school.

O Lionaird keeps it slow and stately with a style that proves that melodic stealth, invention and mystery isn’t a feminine monopoly. Rock fans, previously unexposed to him, may well have discovered a new source and definition of Celtic soul.

But probably not only the folk fans were initially bemused by the Wassies. What would you make of a trio whose “pop” songs sound as if they’re stamped “Made In Burma” and who are able to slip into a rap about the search for the Gaelic language that includes a ridiculous wisecrack about LSD?

Hopefully that there’s a breath of bracingly fresh air at a time when so many young bands allegedly on the cutting edge sound like clones of their American inspirations. Sometimes, a regular hazard of the style, the riffing runs out of inspiration but mostly, Nine Wassies blow away the cobwebs and force you to realise that rock of whatever denomination is best when it’s apparent but spectacular folly.

Band of the year so far, gan amhras.

• Bill Graham