Customer Reviews

Rubai

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Flook! are one of a number of groups taking traditional UK/Irish folk music in great new directions. Rubai, their second album, sees the band's relentlessly upbeat & uplifting ethos further honed from the more traditional (and varied) style of their debut 'Flatfish'.
Most of the sets within this album are just fantastic, with a reliance more on skilled & energetic whistle, flute, bodhran & guitar playing than on the effects-based (but still fantastic)creations of contemporaries such as Mike McGoldrick (a founder member of Flook!) et al.

Purists may not like it- anyone into folk or world music who is open to new ideas almost certainly will.

These people are insane. More energy, more smarts, more sheer musicality than any ten other Irish or Scottish new Celtic groups. Their tunes literally dance out of the speakers with a wildly infections groove seldom if ever found in the music of any other bands, no matter what the genre.

It's almost as if they've figured out how to play Celtic music in an entirely new and glorious way. Something mysterious is going down here, perhaps tied to "a few sonic contributions" from the band's "ingenious engineer, Mark Tucker," reminiscent of similar contributions another Tucker, Tucker Martine, has made to North American bands Mylab and the 4 + 1 Ensemble.

In any case, this is music that should be experienced by anyone who wants to see not only where Celtic music has been, but especially where it is going. Easily the best Celtic disc since Shooglenifty's magnificent Arm's Dealer's Daughter.

Celtic Music is reincarnated yet again! This quartet is anything but a flook. This is intelligently, creatively arranged music with a tightly designed, interwoven quartet sound from excellent musicians. If you were weaving on a Scottish or Irish loom, you would have strands for flute, whistle, button accordian leads driven by strands for a snappy rhythm guitar and the bouncey beat of irish drum. The result is an incredible range, from a jazz fusion flavor, to Latino, to Celtic Traditional. The Flook sound is the interplay of two teams, a two instrument lead, plus a two instrument guitar and bodhran rhythm. It is a carefully crafted sound with two instrument leads hitting the same notes, as if one instrument. Brian Finnegan and Sarah Allen can be said have established a Flook trademark double lead. At other times, they have interwoven harmonies and counterpoints. It is surprising that John Joe Kelley's bodhran (Irish Drum) is carrying the rhythm throughout with enormous versatility. The backside of the drum head is being manipulated to bring the sound up and down to fast paced doublets and triplets. Ed Boyd contributes excellent chord progressions to make this an amazing, pace setting, double rhythm. Their first album, Flatfish, highlights their second album as proof of the primary quartet fully developing their
chemistry. My hope is that Flook stays together and continue in the direction of creative quartet arrangements. This album is exceptionally well reviewed in the United Kingdom, and an undiscovered gem in the United States. If you are a American (Neo)Celtic Music fan, its time to get "flooked."

I heard Flook on LiveIreland.com, and immediately wanted to know where to get the music. Well I tried to find the CD while I was in Ireland during the summer of 2003, and again in 2004, all to no avail. I finally ordered it last year directly from their distributor but my son absconded with the CD after hearing it just once; he's a tenor sax player!

If you want to hear truly incredible musicians play music that really defies Celtic or Irish music boundries, get Flook. You'll be hooked!.

Flook's Rubai quickly bacame the favorite album in my colleciton. It is so full of imagery, energy, life and (mostly) happiness, it's infectious. Would that all infections were so life-giving!
My two favorites on th disc are "Beehive: The Beehive/Poon Hill/Vladimir's Steamboat" Especially on the third part, I can see myself as a lad, running down the banks of the river, trying to keep up with the steamboat puffing along.
The other is Granny In The Attic. I can almost hear her up there, puttering around, humming or singing a little ditty, then worrying about some object or other, then going back to puttering and singing. It's so sweet, I get a tear or two.
I expect this will quickly become one of your favorites as well.

Flook has knocked this one out of the ball park.

Melodic, mostly up tempo and always smooth as silk.

My Irish Step dance teacher let me and my class dance to this cd,
and all I have to say, is this is the best Irish dance music I've ever heard! My dance teacher burned this cd for me.
I got my copy FREE!!!!
Flook has that classic, but modern Irish charm, I love the guitar!
FLOOK FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!