By Mike Farragher

I have been completely grooving on the new Luka Bloom CD, Innocence.

I’d love to tell you more, but Bloom’s management has threatened me with castration if I talk too much about it before the artist formerly known as Barry Moore inks a U.S. distribution deal.

While I can’t say much about the whisperings I’ve gotten from his camp, Bloom was quite chatty about the disc that Hot Press claims is his most intimate yet (obviously, they never heard Turf, but that’s another story).

“I made a decision not to go into a studio, and I’d just built this house in Kildare,” explains Bloom to Hot Press.

“So the producer, Brian Masterson, came down with some old mikes. With the exception of ‘City of Chicago,’ which I wrote 20 years ago, all the songs were virtually written and recorded in the same living room, songs like ‘Venus’ or ‘First Light of Spring’ or ‘Primavera.’”

I will say that Bloom is none the worse for wear for the operation last years on his vocal chords.

“I was so excited to be given a clean bill of health,” he says. “But to ensure I didn’t repeat the damage I’d done to my voice I took some voice coaching, which I’d always shied away from, as I was probably afraid it’d turn me into a John McCormack-style singer.

“But I needn’t have worried. That too might account for the intimacy you talked about.”

Bloom has been touring his head off ever since Innocence was released, and he even shared the stage with old pal Glen Hansard.

“I’m a big fan of the Frames,” he says. “I went to their gig at the Metro in Sydney, and Glen was announcing that the next song was the Elvis Presley hit ‘I Can’t Help Falling In Love With You’. Then he said, ‘And we’ve got a guy here who can sing it,’ and he invited me on stage with him. It was great to do it spontaneously like that.”

Let’s pray that the distribution deal gets inked soon, as no self respecting fan of Irish music in general and Luka Bloom in particular should be without Innocence.

Stay tuned for more information on Bloom. My last word on the topic — Innocence will be worth the wait.

The missus took one listen to this and has made off with the CD for her own use. If Luka’s reading this, send more CDs!

For more information, log onto www.lukabloom.com.