Two Stories In One

RECONCILIATION: "Two Stories In One" (Natural Symphonies)

WHAT STARTED with Ned Kelly (and continued with Steve Cooney) is now loitering at the feet of two Irish and two Aussie musicians, intent on stretching the boundaries of both their musical traditions. With the didgeridoo and exhumed Bronze Age Irish horns forming the core of their sound, Reconciliation's aim is true.

True to the notion of marrying the joint traditions of "open-ended, untortured, humanly-oriented sound," this quartet has bucked convention and focused their sights on the beauties of the percussive instruments that they play together.

Bodied by Valencia islander, Maria Cullen and Dubliner, Simon O'Dwyer along with the fair dinkum Alan Dargin and Philip Conyngham, Reconciliation is an aural landscape that owes far more to the wind and the cracked heat than to the stratified frequencies of a mixing desk.

Apart from transporting me back to the china blue waters of Circular Quay and the greened-pint haven of the Mercantile, Two Stories In One sends a tired moan through the larynx as its blessed syncopations render me blissed out and bewildered at the strangeness of it all.

The sleeve notes are technically complex but comprehensive - a percussionist's dream; a listener's last resort. The sounds are barren and bare, mostly pure drones from horn and didgeridoo, occasionally decorated with soft vellum whispers from a bodhrán or lightened by the whimsy of the tin whistle and clap sticks.

It's not a sound that sits easily on the untrained ear - the intended portrayal of Bondi Junction's tunnel echoes scurrying right past the eardrum until manhandled and restrained by the information lurking inside the cover.

Then though, once alerted to the possibilities, the ear pricks up in search of alternative references to the environment. The bodhrán might be a fleeing rebel, the slit drum an incantation too insistent and yet too subtle to assert itself beyond the rest.

It's a brave recording. A sound that's demanding and discriminating with a limited audience whose ears have been attuned to the eddies and whirls of the drones and toots of didgeridoo and horn. A very Australian album and yet one that's adopted its Irish relatives with glee.

Hardly the material for the next house party but a slow burner that may well raise the temperature a degree or two through sheer tenacity. Reconciliation? Maybe. Two stories in one? That's what they call value for money round these here parts.

• Siobhan Long