Bartins Bay- new album by Brendan Mulholland

[Tradman]

Last week I received my copy of Brendan Mulholland’s latest album on CD, and it does not disappoint at all. I have enjoyed some lessons from Brendan as well as taken his excellent online flute school course a few times. This album is a flute-lover’s piece to delve in deeply for ages. All of the qualities that he strives to instruct on in his lessons are clearly present in this great work and he goes above and beyond the normal ornamentations with flute playing that is savory, sweet and very often smile-inducing. Every track has something to offer, but as always, there are some tracks that really shine and you will no doubt find several favorites among the 13 tracks. Although this is a flute-centric album, the accompaniment is absolutely first class and gives some nice ambience on a few of the pieces. Finally, I would like to say that the full-featured liner notes that are included in the CD remind me why I used to love buying a new album, because often there are many wonderful anecdotal insights that give some history to the tunes recorded and beautiful photography of flutes as well as the featured musicians that accompanied Brendan on the project. Of course, you could buy the album from Bandcamp, but I do prefer also having liner notes, so make your own decision on how to purchase, but purchase!