Sonic wonders abound to delight and challenge the listener
THE STRAD RECOMMENDS
The Strad Issue: September 2025
Description: Sonic wonders abound to delight and challenge the listener
Musicians: Darragh Morgan (violin)
Works: Works by Browning, Buckley, Calix, Dennehy, Feshareki, Lyons, Poppy, Rimbaud and Sunday
Catalogue number: DIATRIBE DIACD051
Anyone who thinks contemporary music isn’t for them should give this vibrant collection of pieces for violin and electronics from Belfast-born new music wizard Darragh Morgan a try. There’s a definite pop-style immediacy to some of the pieces – from Jimi Hendrix reimagined in the untamed, freewheeling Dazed by the Haze by Morgan’s compatriot Frank Lyons, to MC Hammer getting namechecked (alongside James Brown and Chick Corea) as a formative influence on US composer Zack Browning’s joyfully retro, endlessly entertaining Sole Injection.
But alongside the compelling violin-meets-glitchy electronics soundscapes, there’s no dilution in sophistication or provocation in Morgan’s material, and he tempers his wilder forays with quieter, more introspective offerings: Nigerian composer Ibukun Sunday’s lush and all-too-brief fixation stands out as a particularly seductive example.
What brings it all together, however, is Morgan’s own passionate, committed playing – not only his ability to meld with or stand apart from the composer’s intricate electronic backdrops, but also his sense of purpose as a deeply human voice set against an often distinctively machine-like world. In the opening Zohra, he responds to British/Iranian turntablist Shiva Feshareki’s improvisations with an arrestingly raw directness of his own, while he brings a Vivaldi-like luminosity to the flautandos of Donnacha Dennehy’s elegant, immersive Overstrung. It’s a disc that constantly surprises and is delivered in absorbing, authoritative performances and rich, close sound.
DAVID KETTLE
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