The Córas Trio comprise three musicians who are active across the traditional, contemporary and improvisation scenes. Kevin McCullagh is a fiddle player, improviser and sound artist from Belfast whose compositions have been released and performed under the pseudonym Jan Jeffer. Paddy McKeown is a guitarist and multi-instrumentalist from Belfast, whose 2020 solo album The Good Step deserves to be much better known. The third member, Conor McAuley, is a jazz drummer, improviser and composer who has performed with a wide range of musicians, and is co-director of the QUBe improvisation collective at Queen’s University Belfast. They have been playing live together as a trio recently, and this is their first album.

A casual glance at the list of tracks might be deceptive due to the presence of familiar session favourites like ‘The Roscommon’ and ‘The Boys of Ballisodare’. These tunes are rarely heard in full on the album, however, and instead they form the basis and inspiration for improvisations by the trio. They are points of departure, rather than, as is often the case in traditional-based contemporary music, blocks to be built on, overlaid with new textures, and returned to. On this recording, the Córas Trio generally do not let the gravity of these often classic tunes anchor them to prosaic recapitulations of the source material. The goal is to use the tunes as a way of exploring improvisatory techniques and processes.

The album opens with an improvisation using the Clare reel ‘Jackie Fizpatrick’s’. After some introductory gestures, the tune is played in full by McCullagh, but with a fluctuating rhythm and pulse, in a manner that is faintly reminiscent of some of Tommie Potts’ or Martin Hayes’ playing. McKeown’s guitar avoids any obvious traditional gestures, settling into a rapid repeated figure, counterpointed by McAuley’s drumming, which also circumvents the standard rhythmic pulses of the tune. In some ways this is a challenging opening track, because of the restless, fragmented and almost anxious way that McCullagh draws on the tune in his improvisations; jagged phrases rush by, stop abruptly, or are repeated almost obsessively. The contrasting processes at play in the guitar and drum textures further challenge the listener, particularly as to how their individual oscillations and explosiveness relate to the melodic improvisations of McCullagh and to the tune.

Obscured melodies
A contrasting soundworld is created in the following track, ‘Black Pat’s’, a popular Tommy Peoples composition. Drones and mellow guitar harmonies underpin a much more relaxed sound, with McCullagh seeming to reflect on and amplify the lyrical nature of Peoples’ reel, particularly bringing out echoes of the third part and other higher-pitched phrases. The nature of McCullagh’s improvisations results in the tune being highly obscured – it is never heard in its full form at any stage. Some of the reel phrases that emerge are almost more generic – in the sense of them being reel-like rather than being directly mappable onto the melody.

To an extent the improvisations tend to (broadly) follow these two modes of exposition. The ‘Roscommon Reel’ builds from an incisive and arresting opening texture of pizzicato, cymbals and electronics, gradually referencing the tune, before it is played in a highly free-form manner. Perhaps this follows the tune too closely though, as I felt it didn’t always work in the context of the stochastic nature of the drums and guitar. The final track, ‘Boys of Ballisodare’, is initially mellow and relaxed, with almost defiantly tonal and sonorous harmonies. As the improvisation develops the guitar and drums (in particular) become much more active in filling out the texture, and McCullagh’s peregrinations lead him into a jig, ‘The Leg of the Duck’. The extended nature of this set really allows the music to unfold gradually, and creates a sense of development and organicism. For me, the most striking and arresting piece is ‘Julia Delaney’s’, which uses electronics and extended techniques to create a piercing and pulsating drone/wave, over which an often processed and reverberant fiddle makes the faintest allusions to the reel.

This is an album rich in ideas, steadfast and uncompromising in its focus on group improvisation and its processes and techniques (the trio’s name, Córas, refers to the multiple systems that the band uses in its improvisations). The recording succeeds in bringing together traditional, avant garde and improvisatory practices, but might be more approachable for a listener familiar with contemporary and improvised music. At the same time, the fiddle often appears more like a lead instrument (rather than this being a partnership of equals) because of the album’s focus on tunes (even the less obvious ‘Eddie and Nancy’ contains Eddie Kelly’s ‘The Meelick Team’, and Liz Carroll’s ‘Princess Nancy’.) Perhaps this is why the tracks with more focus on the tune aren’t as effective as when the melody is approached obliquely. It is also not always easy to connect the guitar and drums to the ‘source material’ (but as always with boundary-crossing recordings this might be due to a flawed mode of analysis that over-concentrates on the tune). McKeown’s prowess as a melody player is also strangely underused on the recording, and there might have been room for more dialogue and interplay between the two string instruments. These minor issues aside, this is a pioneering album that is both challenging and entrancing, and its substance and depth will repay repeated and close listening.

Córas Trio is available to purchase on CD or as a digital download from Bandcamp. Visit https://corastrio.bandcamp.com/album/c-ras-trio.

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