TRÁ PHÁIDÍN — CLOCH'S CLAÍ

Now then, this is proper-weird gear. Galway folk (we think) colliding with varying degrees of success with obvious bedfellows like mariachi, motorik and political rage. We like oddness, though, so we weren't instantly sick in our mouths. What we weren't expecting was to be so beguiled by such a heavy, head-on collision of different stuff that it didn't feel like trying too hard to be Important Music.

This is an album where an old Irish folk jig can pop up and, given what's surrounded it previously, remind you of Tinariwen. Context is everything, but when stuff's either this meticulously assembled or this utterly random (you tell us, we're not sure), it works. This is world music for a world that doesn't exist. Folk music for a country we'd like to take a weird, magical holiday in. The sort of record that refuses to stay politely within the lines, then draws more interesting lines of its own.