Niall Keegan - Journal of Music

This recording from two brothers forming a Cork outpost of the Armagh artistic dynasty is the second recording of the Buille ensemble. The recording is very much rooted in the compositions of the senior of the two brothers, Niall, who writes twelve of the thirteen tunes – the other is written with his younger brother Caoimhín – and the performances are very much centred around Niall’s concertina.
Quite simply this album represents the best of what contemporary traditional music is feared to be. Most of the tracks are built around single tunes. There is an innovative flair to the style of arrangement incorporating the diverse strings of Zoë Conway, Karen Dervan, Kate Ellis, Ed Boyd and Paul Meehan (who formally featured as a band member but perhaps has been drawn away by his duties with Lúnasa). The ensemble is further enhanced by the percussion and banjo of Brian Morrissey and the incomparable Neil Yates who bangs out tunes on his trumpet with an ease that sounds native.
Tunes and their basic structure are left more-or-less alone (although they are sometimes a little quirky), but there are often improvised breaks and jazz-style solos that will surely annoy many. Focus shifts easily from the dominant ensemble as in track one (‘Coburg St Nights’) to the occasional explosions of hair and teeth when Niall reveals his astounding and idiosyncratic technique, such as in track seven (‘Dog à l’Orange’). However it is the arrangement and especially the string arrangement that impresses most, in that you can hear an unusual marriage of traditional sensibilities and a lack of fear often motivated by the realisation of the otherness of the string idiom.
I have occasional minor quibbles with the quality of some of the synthesised sounds and the style of production which is ubiquitous to a generation of musicians around Cork, but this is hardly worth a mention. Niall Vallely’s compositions have grown in stature through the development of a minimalistic bent most obviously heard in track three (‘The Oblique Jig’) which has a pentatonic structure and a range of less than an octave. Caoimhín’s keyboard commentary is sparkling through its economy, letting us know what the tunes are trying to say through their confining forms. Again this seems to be achieved through a less busy approach than in his previous outing with Buille.
I spend a lot of time bemoaning the lack of originality in traditional ensemble work heard today, which is dominated by the echoes of sounds established nearly forty years ago. If we are going to avoid the artistic cul-de-sac of endless variations of the same formulae to a dwindling audience of cultural tourists, it is artists such as Niall and Caoimhín Vallely who will put up the signposts we need.

 

 

Reviews for Buille debut album

 

Siobhán Long - Irish Times ****

It's seldom that instruments are reinvented by individual musicians. Larry Adler did it with a harmonica; so did Pierre Bensusan with his acoustic fingerstyle guitar. And now Niall Vallely has done it again with the humble concertina, a vastly underrated instrument in the traditional firmament. Vallely has penned some 14 original tunes for this dynamo of an album: full of fire-breathing verve (1st of August/2nd of August), lonesome odes (To Mullacreevie, ingeniously paired with The Dunmore Lasses, one of only two non-Vallely originals), and matrimonial celebrations (Tiarnán and Stephanie's) that burst with vitality. With Paul Meehan on guitar and brother Caoimhín on piano, Buille is as fresh a breath that's blown through traditional (and roots) circles in a long, long time.

 

Alex Monaghan - Irish Music Magazine/Living Tradition
 
  
Irish concertina genius Niall Vallely has been quiet of late, but this recording with brother Caoimhín on keyboards and Paul Meehan on guitars is a timely reminder of his brilliance and style. Buílle is mostly Niall's own tunes, often in the Irish or Scottish idiom, and invariably played with the type of flair and musicality which most of us can only wonder at.
Niall kicks off with one of his trademark finger-blistering reels, shaking that hexagonal magic box like it was a Bond martini. This man can do pyrotechnics with his eyes shut, but Buílle isn't all flash and burn. Farewell to McCarthy's is a perfectly paced slow jig, sad but with just a hint of swagger. Singing Stream Air is simply beautiful, and should be set to Gaelic words about unrequited love or maybe fratricide. Mullacreevie is back to the fireworks factory, a savage whirl of notes, not the sort of dance music where the dancer can win. Longnancy's is more familiar, a jig in the classic style, plenty of swagger and just the right turn of speed. It's paired with the traditional Winnie Hayes' Jig. If it's unfamiliar you're after, try Eleven Eight, not an Ireland-England rugby result but a bewildering Balkan rhythm.
The accompaniment throughout is flawless. Brian Morrissey chips in on bodhrán occasionally. Paul and Caoimhín both have their solo moments, on Longnancy's and Gleann an Phréacháin respectively, but Buílle is all about the concertina and the man behind it. This CD should join Niall Vallely's excellent previous albums as a classic of new Irish music. Miss it if you dare.

Josephine Mulvenna - Daily Ireland

‘Buílle’ means blow, stroke or beat and from the first note on the piece The Wrong House, Paul Meehan’s guitar punching, the addition of Brian Morrissey’s subtle beat of the bodhrán and the wizardry of Caoímhín Vallely on piano you know you are in for a treat and then the brilliance of concertina player Níall Vallely just takes off. I have listened to this ensemble with utter delight on a few occasions and even now as I write I am practically typing this piece up on the beat.
Buílle are only on the go since 2004 but what a pedigree of musicianship. Just back from the Celtic Connections Festival and an appearance on BBC2’s Blackstaff Sessions from Belfast coming up on Friday, January 27 at 10pm, trad, jazz and classical fusion form the album’s tracks penned by Níall along with two Irish traditional tunes, there is a real sense of these lads knowing each other’s playing intimately. Farewell to McCarthy’s is a gentle slow jig dedicated to a pub in Cork where each of the three maestros spent time in their lives.
The gem for me is Singing Stream Air commissioned by the William Kennedy Piping Festival. the singer in me feels the deep beauty, emotion and haunting traditional arrangement, the phrasing, the climbs, the soft quietness and the depth beautifully weaved together by each musician.
No wonder there is such craft at work – the Vallelys of Armagh are a clan of artists working in many areas of our culture and the two brothers and Paul Meehan are part and parcel of other acclaimed groupings such as Lunasa and the Karen Casey Band. Past ventures included North Cregg, Nomos and Na Dórsa.
Caoímhín is musical director with Belfast-based theatre company Dubblejoint. Just wait for my piece on Caoímhín’s debut album.
We take off again with the light jig 1st of August/2nd of August with that fusion of traditional and jazz, you could be at the races or on a train the effect is powerful and moving. Paul’s guitar shines in Long Nancy’s, a well-known music filled watering hole near to Middleton in Co Armagh.
I am smiling again like I do when gems like Buílle come along. Niall loves his jigs and no better way to finish this explosion of tunes and airs than Tiarnán and Stephanie’s and Dark Loanin, with that lovely build and lift off.
Niall says: “There was a point about two years ago where it felt as though we had hit upon something new. It was like tuning a radio and finding a station I’d never heard before, but which seemed to be playing the music I wanted to hear.”
Virtuoso concertina player Niall makes the wee hexagonal box dance and the ensemble that is Buílle hits the note beyond the boundaries.

Buille Strikes a Blow for Invention
Earle Hitchner - Irish Echo

With Thoreauvian boldness Buille marches to the beat of a different drummer. In fact, the trio's name in Irish means beat (as well as blow or stroke), and a boundary-pushing musical perspective is what they attempt to deliver on their self-titled debut CD for Glasgow's Vertical Records.
Rooted in Irish traditional music, Armagh's Niall Vallely on concertina, his younger brother Caoimhín Vallely on piano, and Paul Meehan on acoustic guitar "hit upon something new" about two years ago, according to Niall. He likened it to "tuning a radio and finding a station I'd never heard before but which seemed to be playing the music I wanted to hear."
Comprising 14 melodies written by Niall and two trad tunes, the album "Buille" mixes Irish traditional with jazz and classical strains and stylings that collectively refresh the shopworn "hiberno-jazz" category of music. Niall Vallely helped give currency to that latter label with his participation in pianist Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin's ensemble of the same name in the early 1990s. Niall also played on David O'Rourke and Lewis Nash's Celtic Jazz Collective CD, "Aislinn (a vision)," which ironically failed because of insufficient vision. It was also hobbled by inadequate rehearsal and, frankly, limited swing on the Irish side.
For the most part, "Buille" succeeds where that album stumbles. Rehearsal is not an issue because of the Vallelys' fraternal-musical bond and the constant touring by Niall and Paul in the Karan Casey Band. These three know each other well and know each other's style well: Caoimhín Vallely and Paul Meehan guested on Niall Vallely's "Beyond Words" solo debut in 1999 and also on Niall and Cillian Vallely's "Callan Bridge" recording in 2002. That translates into often synaptic communication and instantaneous reflex by the trio in performance, andallows improvisation without loss of control. Even in moments when they spin off the spine of a melody, the trio always keep it in sight. The best realization of a trad-jazz blend on the CD is the medley of "1st of August/2nd of August," two Niall Vallely tunes played by him with stirring virtuosity, panache, and almost puckish glee. Vallely knows how to swing, and Caoimhín and Meehan know how to weave their own playing around and into his. The guitar builds tension within the tempo and erects a short bridge between tunes, and the piano in one passage provides a percussive beat and in another lays down the melody. Guest Brian Morrissey's bodhrán work is present but not overbearing as concertina, piano, and guitar progress dynamically toward a concentrated whole. This track is sly, forceful, and inventive, using all the structural tools of trad and jazz to achieve what is altogether rare in hiberno-jazz: seamlessness.
That track is followed by another Niall Vallely melody, "Eleven Eight," where the classical underpinning is especially apparent in Caoimhín Vallely's solo piano playing at the outset. It somewhat recalls Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin's keyboard approach in his 1987 solo CD "The Dolphin's Way," but Caoimhín is neither imitative nor derivative in his own musical interpretation. The ideas informing his playing are his own and enrich the enjoyment of this track. He is more Keith Jarrett than George Winston, and that Jarrett-like sparkle surfaces in the distinctive reading Caoimhín gives to his brother's beautiful melody "Gleann an Phréacháin" and in the more atmospheric and ruminative "Farewell to McCarthy's."
Jazz musicians customarily leave enough head room (that is, space for theme development) for all instruments to stretch or strut. Niall Vallely similarly lets his brother and Meehan take some tasty solo turns in his slow air "Singing Stream," part of a longer composition from which a section also popped up on the "Callan Bridge" album.
To some extent, speed overtakes sense in "The Wrong House/The Baltimore Fox" and especially in the second tune of "Mullacreevie/Dunmore Lasses," in which the concertina bunches notes like a rugby scrum. But even there Niall Vallely's dexterity redeems the velocity. Some of his triplets, runs, and intentional slurs are nothing short of breathtaking and leave the listener slack-jawed in admiration. Only Clare-born Noel Hill and Meath-born Mícheál Ó Raghallaigh are in Niall Vallely's hexagonal-box company for sheer technique today.
The one soft spot on the CD is the repetitive passages in "Tiarnán and Stephanie's," a tune Niall Vallely wrote for the wedding of uilleann piper Tiarnán Ó Duinnchin and singer Stephanie Makem, two members of a band in which Paul Meehan also performed, Na Dórsa. This repetition smacks of a fugue-like, finger-limbering exercise, efficient but weightless.
Still, of all the albums issued in pursuit of the holy grail of trad-jazz-classical fusion, "Buille" ranks near the top in vision and execution. If Niall Vallely, Caoimhín Vallely, and Paul Meehan have not quite hit upon something startlingly new in sound, they have most assuredly raised that sound to a new level of skill, sophistication, and soul worthy of any Irish music devotee's interest.

Sarah Hunter - Live review from Hebridean Celtic Festival 2006

Who could follow the range of rhythm and style that is Saltfishforty? Irish band Buille were well up to the challenge.
Buille are another band short in history but in no way lacking in talent. Formed two years ago they feature Niall Vallely on the concertina - an instrument he picked up at the age of six or seven because he "liked the look of it", Paul Meehan on guitar, Caoimhin Vallely on piano, and Frank Torpey on the drum.
The band have a huge amount of experience with Celtic music, Niall formed Nomos back in 1990 and Paul was a member of North Cregg with whom he recorded three albums.
However, it was not their past accomplishments that the crowd and I were interested in but the here and now.
Buille gave the audience fast and furious reels and jigs but it was their slower more emotive tunes that sent shivers up my spine. The concertina really is a magical instrument and it came into it's own in these more measured numbers, long drawn out notes tugging at half forgotten memories; hazy images of days gone by.
With these musicians there was an intensity and concentration that I hadn't yet seen. For me great music takes you away and stirs you up. With Buille, players and audience alike were caught up - ever so slightly on edge - until the incredible journey was over.
Sarah Hunter