CD Review

Natalie MacMaster
In My Hands
(Rounder)

This beautiful album is artistically advernturous. MacMaster makes a lot of departures from Celtic folk traditions without losing the essence of their spirit. She begins, uncharacteristically, by singing a song - a love song addressed to the fiddle. It's a kind of invocation, or like the saying of grace before eating. Later on, Allison Krauss makes an appearance to sing "Get Me Through December." In this context, the words are there as much as texture as anything else, like the voice of another instrument. "Space Ceilidh" adds an underscoring of electronic instruments and several songs have arrangements for strings that are more classical than folk. "Mom's Jig" is a spirited number that adds MacMaster's fabled step dancing as percussion. In short, the album claims new ground and does it flawlessly. Recommended. -HB