(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., Feb. 20, 1998) -- Everything moves faster than it used to, they say, and Anam offers living proof of the theorem. For in the course of its five-year existence, the Celtic folk group's music has undergone more of a revolution than an evolution, recapitulating in half a decade the sort of change wrought on the traditional style by hundreds of years of growth, experimentation and outside influences.

Still, in spite of some very contemporary-sounding innovations, Anam remains at heart a traditional, acoustic, Celtic-folk ensemble, albeit one whose members bring to the music influences from the here-and-now. Anam, pronounced ON-im, means "soul" in Gaelic, and -- judging from its recordings -- the aptly-named Anam plays soulful Celtic music that speaks to contemporary audiences while echoing the ages.

On its first visit to these shores, Anam comes to the Clark Art Institute on Saturday night, Feb. 21, at 8, kicking off the Clark's "From the Old World to the New" world-folk series. Call 458-2303, ext. 324, for ticket information and reservations.

"We're quite difficult to pigeonhole," said Treasa Harkin in a recent phone interview from her apartment in Edinburgh, Anam's home base, just days before the group was to launch its first American tour. "We all come from a traditional background, but we listen to a wide variety of things, and all our individual influences come together to make Anam," said Harkin, who plays button accordion and whistle in the group.

Harkin said Anam started out solidly in the traditional camp when the group recorded its first album. By the time its third album, "First Footing" (JVC) was released last year, traces of its other influences -- including jazz chords and African rhythms -- were peeking out from under the typical Celtic mix of jigs, ballads and reels.

On the group's upcoming album, "Riptide" (JVC) -- which won't be released here until June -- such non-traditional elements as saxophones, trap drums and Middle Eastern melodies are fully out of the closet, making for a wholly dynamic mix of Celtic-based world-fusion.

"We're not afraid to try anything," said Harkin, who at age 25 is the self-described "baby" of the group. "We don't see ourselves restricted by any definition of tradition or way we should sound. We're not representative of any particular or regional style. We're just playing music that the four of us like."

Still, you're not likely to hear grungy electric guitars or tinny synthesizers on any Anam release in the near or long-term future. "I think we want to keep it as acoustic as possible," said Harkin. "One of the charms of it is we could do a gig with no microphones -- although you couldn't hear the mandolin very well."

Anam's repertoire includes about half original songs and instrumentals and half traditional numbers, reworked and rearranged, Anam-style. Besides Harkin, the group boasts singer/guitarist Brian OhEadhra (pronounced BREE-an O'Hara), 26, vocalist and bodhran player Aimee Leonard, 30, and the group's newest member, Neil Davey, 36, on mandolin and bouzouki.

While OhEadhra and Davey split the songwriting duties, Harkin says that when making musical decisions, the group functions as an ideal democracy.

"When someone comes up with an idea, it's tossed around and changed and everyone adds their own ideas to it," she said. "Everything is tried. It's very much a common democratic system which works quite well. It has to be that way. If someone just handed you a piece of music and said, `This is what you have to play,' you couldn't enjoy that. You have to do something you feel a part of."

Harkin says that Anam itself is part of a thriving musical scene in Edinburgh. "It's an amazing city for music at the moment," she said. "So many musicians have come here to make Edinburgh their base, which has created a whole pool of people that are our friends and whom we socialize with and share flats with."

Harkin described the members of Anam as all university-educated and all "a bit obsessed with music."

"Music takes up ninety-percent of our time, although we've all worked in other areas before we got into music, and so we've had life experiences outside the band," she said.

As opposed to the prevailing stereotype of the hard-drinking, party- loving Celtic musician -- a cliche, said Harkin, based in large part on reality -- the members of Anam are relatively sedate.

"We don't drink very much," she said. "We're very boring that way. And none of us smoke. Which is quite unusual for a traditional band."

[This article originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on Feb. 20, 1998. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 1998. All rights reserved.]