Dana Lyn & Kyle Sanna: The Coral Suite
Dana Lyn & Kyle Sanna

Dana Lyn's an artist of many talents: when not playing traditional Irish tunes with guitarist Kyle Sanna, the New York-based fiddler might be found working with actor Vincent D'Onofrio in the duo project Slim Bone Head Volt; composing material for Brooklyn Rider or the National Arts Council of Ireland; performing with cellist Hank Roberts or Loudon Wainwright; or even creating professional-quality illustrations like those included on her third album with Sanna, The Coral Suite. The guitarist is no slouch in the credits department either: he's composed works for string quartet (his Sequence for Minor White won the top prize in the 2018 Charlotte New Music Festival Composition Competition) and arranged music for Béla Fleck, Anne-Sofie Von Otter, and Yo-Yo Ma, among others.

Lyn and Sanna's latest release picks up where the previous one left off. Whereas the second album, The Great Arc, focused on extinct and endangered animal species, the new one centers on the biodiversity of coral reef ecosystems. Though environmental fragility is a heavy theme, the two don't treat it heavy-handedly in their musical presentation, which is more celebratory than morose. Certainly the text and illustrations that come with the release provide a quick introduction to the many species that call the underwater habitat home, and one comes way from the project with a renewed appreciation for the diversity of life in the coral reef environment. Musically, the fifty-minute release is presented as two halves, with airs, jigs, and reels appearing without pause in each (a perceptible shift into classical territory occurs when “Double” by J.S. Bach emerges within the second part), and for those so inclined the progression from one piece to the next can be followed by using the sleeve text as a guide.

During the first part's lilting introduction, Lyn's heartfelt rendering of the mournful melodies of “Dear Irish Boy” are well-supported by Sanna's acoustic picking, until the action picks up and the air's supplanted by a series of reels and jigs. Of the two, Lyn generally assumes the role of lead melodist, but in providing a solid ground Sanna's an indispensable part of the equation; he also sometimes moves to the fore, one such instance arriving towards the end of the first part when he contributes some memorable slide playing. In keeping with the material, her fiddle playing exudes a rustic quality that moves the performances away from the stuffy concert hall to the Irish countryside. For the most part, the presentation is unadorned, though an occasional passage occurs where multi-tracking is evident, such as when Lyn's fiddle briefly becomes a swarm and ambient treatments enhance the textural design.

August 2018