You won't often hear these in the same sentence, but to enjoy this album you'll need to love both bagpipes and new music. Michael O'Neill's Ontophony is not easy listening, by any means, but a fascinating experiment that succeeds at times, and at others falls into a great noodling trap. The first cut, "A Walk Supreme," captures the imagination with four sets of pipes and tabla, and elsewhere, where pipes and shakuhachi work together, it's interesting, but pipes and taiko can get somewhat self-indulgent. As for the compositions, they meander somewhat, and it's hard to get a full sense of O'Neill's technical ability as a piper from them. However, if you fancy something quite different, this could be right up your glen.
© Chris Nickson /TiVo