In the media yoke this week is “Sooner or Later,” the most recent album from the brilliant fiddle player Tara Breen. A musician with an impeccable CV, the material she’s gathered here was, as her PR puts it, “collected and composed from experiences of her musical past and present” and “represents a current reflection on where her music has grown from the ground up through her surroundings in her native County Clare.” The results are stunning and would be an important addition to any traditional music playlist. If you’re an Irish music lover, this is an album to check out for sure.
Breen emerged early as a prodigious young musician. The numerous All-Irelands she earned in her younger years led her to groups like Ciorras (which was featured as part of a TG4 series that showcased emerging Irish talent mentored by Dónal Lunny) and the Trí-Tones (with Conor Moriarty and Stephen Rooney), whose eponymous 2014 album was named Album of The Year by Tradconnect. This success led her to be invited into the legendary group Stockton’s Wing and shortly thereafter the Chieftains, with whom she played for over 10 years.
More recently, she’s known for her work with the innovative concertina player Padraig Rynne in the group NOTIFY and as a part of the trio Breen | Rynne | Murray. Her playing on forward-looking albums like “Worlds Collide” (2025), “Airneán” (2024), “Odyssey” (2024), “Nasc” (2021), and “Avalla” (2019) – all of which I’ve written about here – is always audacious and exquisitely well-executed. Her tone is brilliant, phrasing superb and vibe playful and loose. A superb musician.
“Sooner…” is an excellent display of this. It opens with “Pottinger’s Reel / Ronnie MacLellan’s / Bunker Hill,” a spirited set of reels that showcases both Breen’s technical command and her great good taste. The tunes are well selected but it’s playing that communicates the inner sensibility of the music she’s chosen and it’s wonderful to hear. The outstanding guitar backing from Seán Óg Graham (who also plays bouzouki, keyboards, and bass throughout, and is the album’s producer) adds to the overall sound tremendously, both here and throughout.
These reels are followed by “Tom McElvogue’s / Tommy Doyle’s / Rosco’s,” a jig set that begins with a slip jig. What I love about this track, beyond the tunes themselves (and in particular, “Rosco’s,” which is one of Breen’s own compositions), is how effectively Breen manages her playing dynamics – she calibrates the lift in precise and interesting ways, giving what could have been a mundane running of tunes a kind of elevated narrative arc. This is a very high-level approach that gives her general approach a special sensibility listeners will surely appreciate.
Some of the other tune sets of note here are the set of reels “Stranger at the Gate / Eleanor Kane’s / Tom McElvogue’s,” the jig set “The Dooish / Frances Xavier Kennedy MacDonald / Old Tattered Fiddle,” and “Will you come down to Limerick / The Tripper / The Rumours of a Dart.” Each features the same kind of high level playing you’d expect from Breen, but the tune selection, with compositions by folks like Tommy Peoples, Ed Reavy, Jerry Holland, Benedict Koehler, and Oisín McAuley, is top notch. Great stuff to hear.
There are a couple tracks that provide important contrast to the dance tunes that represent most of the album’s contents. One is “Air for Eamonn,” a piece Breen wrote for a friend whose life was lost to cancer last year. It is an incredible and moving work that projects the great weight of loss. Breen’s playing is very expressive here, complemented by Graham sensitive backing. But of all the interesting music here, “Corsican Waltz” is the most obvious tonal outlier. One of the album’s nicest tracks, it was a signature piece of Irish flute player Desi Wilkinson’s (whose source may have been a 1978 recording of Corsican mandolinist René Vallecalle) that Breen has adapted very well here. It takes the album’s content away from Ireland briefly which makes for a fascinating excursion.
“Sooner or Later” is the album Breen fans have been waiting to hear. Having worked with others at such a high level for so long, it was time for a solo statement and Breen has really delivered. The music is total class and the choices she’s made give the album a real strong sense of individuality. Highly recommended to give this one a spin and a close listen, it’s absolutely worth it. For more information on Breen and to purchase, visit her website here.
