Tricia Corrigan will have the listener entranced from the opening track of A Different Kind of Beautiful, "and she danced."

I particularly enjoyed the song "Love in a Secret." It is nice quiet delivery and is from the pen of the performer. In a similar vein we get "The Death of Love," once more written by Corrigan.

There are a few cover versions included on the album. In particular she does an excellent rendition of Joni Mitchell's "All I Want" and Bob Dylan's "Forever Young."

She turns tradition on its head with two of the best tracks on offer here. We are so used to having songs translated into English for inclusion on albums. Corrigan goes the other way and works two minor miracles. "I Don't Want to Talk About It" is translated and becomes a new song, but my favourite has to be "Suantrai." This song is better known to us from the singing of Sean Keane as "Lullaby," but somehow this young lady realized how beautiful it would sound "as gaelige" and went for it.

Another unusual aspect of this CD is when you read the liner notes. They inform us that the drums were recorded in a garage, the flute in a photocopying room and everything else in "Andrew's front room."

It's amazing how far we progress and then almost return to the old days of traditional music recording in the field with old reel-to-reel tape recorders. But then the quality is amazing.

- Rambles
written by Nicky Rossiter
published 8 January 2005