At 18, Cian Nugent graced the front cover of Tompkins Square’s Imaginational Anthem, Vol. 3. He was one of the younger guitarists included to balance the underappreciated private-press masters that were the label’s original inspiration. Eighteen years and 11 volumes later, Nugent returns as curator of Imaginational Anthem vol. XIV: Ireland, an album of contemporary Irish instrumental music that mixes newly written pieces with traditional material, each track offering a distinct perspective on the form.
The album opens with County Cork musician David Murphy performing “The March of the King of Laois,” a centuries-old tune associated with the older repertory of Irish marches. Traditionally played on pipes, the melody takes on a different weight when retooled for pedal steel: slow, spacious, and quietly luminous, with a sense of mystery and restraint that lingers long after the final note. It’s followed by “Jamieson’s Favourite,” an equally unexpected reading of a traditional tune by Irish-Okinawan guitarist Caoimhe Hopkinson (County Mayo), who reshapes the piece as a waltz, multi-tracking acoustic guitars that drift in and out of phase before resolving into bright, ringing harmony.
Mark McKowski (County Tyrone) and Jerome McGlynn (County Tyrone) duet on a carefully measured, surprisingly wistful version of “The Blackbird,” their steel strings gently floating together and apart, rising and falling despite the tune’s long history as a celebratory set dance. Taking the opposite approach, Junior Brother—Ronan Kealy of County Kerry—approaches “The Lark in the Morning” with a hard-strumming insistence, lifting the melody out of its pastoral setting and pulling it toward indie-rock territory, played with the conviction of an original song.
Like Kealy, many of the musicians here grew up immersed in a range of musical worlds, and it shows in their writing. Damian O’Neill (Derry), best known for his work as the bassist in That Petrol Emotion, combines acoustic and electric guitars on “Inside Out,” a piece that balances elegiac phrasing with a sharper, more contemporary edge. Brendan Jenkinson (County Meath), a producer and longtime member of Villagers, reaches across both the Channel and the Atlantic on “Paris Blues,” a sweetly syncopated piece that comes closest to an American Primitive sensibility without ever feeling derivative. Aonghus McEvoy (Dublin) pushes even further outward, improvising over “Cry, Want,” a composition by American jazz clarinetist and composer Jimmy Giuffre, in a far-ranging acoustic solo that continually reshapes the source material, filled with space, tension, and a quiet sense of loss.
Bringing the album full circle, Nugent himself contributes “I Am Asleep and Don’t Waken Me,” a traditional slow air often associated with the Irish harp tradition. It’s the gentlest moment on the record: two minutes of ringing tones, resonant triplets, and carefully restrained drama that capture the ongoing push and pull between past and present. In doing so, Nugent neatly grounds Irish neo-traditional guitar in this moment, in this place, and in the hands of this generation.
