Moving Cloud is a quintet of Irish musicians who face something of a quandary: they want to be regarded as concert performers rather than a dance band, but while it's true that their chops are more than sufficient to hold an audience's attention, they play in a style that owes far more to the ceilidh than to the concert hall. For one thing, they tend to take tunes at a brisk but moderate tempo (unlike some of their more flamboyant contemporaries who play everything at speeds no one could dance to even if they wanted to), and for another, they've got
Carl Hession banging out the off-beats on his piano in a way that just begs you to spin around the floor with your fair colleen. And then there are the tunes themselves:
Foxglove consists almost entirely of dance sets (there is one slow air), and the program even includes a waltz. So
Moving Cloud should probably just accept its fate and let the rest of us dance gratefully. Highlights include flutist
Kevin Crawford's gorgeous playing on "Mooney's Mazurka," and the perfect ensemble blend on the sprightly and lovely song air "Suil Suil a Ghra." ~ Rick Anderson