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Sean Noonan stirs up the ingredients of his unique "wandering folk music" project for a second brew. Grandiose, intoxicating, and sui generis, this wildly ambitious and idiosyncratic concept album blends passionate vocals and time-honored lyrics from Ireland, Mali and Senegal, raw power-jamming jazz/rock guitars, shape-shifting improv viola, dense soundscapes, funked or punked up drum and bass grooves and complex, dancing polyrhythms. The musical stories Noonan tells here are as diverse as ever, but the overriding metaphor of the record's title suggests how he wrestled it's elements and his own restless subconscious into a personal artistic vision. Featuring downtown NY instrumentalists Marc Ribot, Mat Maneri, Aram Bajakian and Jamaaladeen Tacuma and folk/world vocalists Susan McKeown and Abdoulaye Diabaté. Says Sean: "A major aspect of Boxing Dreams is how the music adapts storytelling, folklore and post-modern jazz, merging material from the Bardic and Griot traditions," and generally the songs are multi-lingual (Gaelic, Wolof, Bambara, English). An example of the synergy between voices and instruments: McKeown's sound is entranced and bewitching, and Maneri is like her instrumental shadow or familiar. As Aram Bajakian, Sean's closest musical collaborator here, comments: "There's something really eerie about the way Susan's voice goes with Mat's playing. And then Abdoulaye will come in, and it brings a smile to your face. He has such an amazing presence." And this is just one example of the surprising juxtapositions Noonan pulls off throughout the record.