February 11, 2026
Principal (in this case only) Personnel: Nicolas Brown (flutes)
Distinctive Tracks: “I Had a Wife of My Own/Why Should I Like My Love?”;
“Master, I Go Hunting /Shaving Baby with a Spoon/Sky Blue Dress”; “Leprechaun’s/Up Leitrim”; “Maurice Manley's/Barrack Hill/Aunty Mary Had a Canary”; “The Concert Reel/Lady on the Island”
Brown is a St. Louis-based uilleann piper who has a penchant for inventive solo album concepts. His previous release, “Good Enough Music for Them Who Love It,” featured him on a set of antique pipes playing tunes that would’ve been current around the time the pipes were made. Here, he spotlights the flute – or rather four different ones, in the keys of D, B, F and E-flat – on sets of reels, jigs, slip jigs, hop jigs, slides and flings plus one slow air, all unaccompanied.
If this seems a bit on the esoteric side, the results are enjoyable nonetheless – hearing someone with absolute mastery of an instrument play solo usually is, of course. The album provides an opportunity to appreciate the characteristics and qualities of the flute and what it brings to traditional Irish music, especially given these four iterations: The B flute has a somewhat subdued but rich tone to it, for instance, while the F flute is brash and lively.
Most of all, “Not So Good as the Flute” is simply full of damn good tunes, whether from tradition or of recent vintage. There are three slides from Sliabh Luachra – which also exist as polkas, Brown notes – including the exuberant finale, “Aunty Mary Had a Canary.” “I Had a Wife of My Own,” the first of a pair of slip jigs, is notable not only for its musicality but for its Frankensteinesque construction, Brown having pieced this version together from eight different collections. In reaction to what he views as a general paucity of hop jigs in our midst, Brown trots out a dandy trio of them on the F flute; the first two are compositions by musicians connected to the Boston Irish scene, Armand Aromin’s “Master, I Go Hunting” and Patrick Hutchinson’s strikingly titled “Shaving Baby with a Spoon.” And he roars splendidly through “The Lady on the Island,” the second of two distinguished reels (along with “The Concert Reel”) in another set.
In the notes for his previous album, “Good Enough Music for Them Who Love It,” Brown included a quote by 17th-century Scottish professional soldier and memoirist Sir James Turner that he brings back here in slightly altered form: “The Bag-pipe is good enough Musick for them who love it; but sure it is not so good as the [flute].” All due respect to Sir James, it’s not an argument anyone really needs to have, especially if they listen to Brown on both instruments.
Principal Personnel: Anna Hughes (vocals, fiddle, viola, tenor guitar), Ewan MacPherson (vocals, guitars, percussion), Jenny Sturgeon (vocals, guitars, piano, harmonium, dulcimer)
Notable Guests: Andy Bell (synthesizer), Magnus Lundmark (percussion),
Ben Nicholls (electric and double bass)
Distinctive Tracks: “Autumn on the Run,” “Take This Day,” “Cut Him Out in Little Stars,” “Fathoms,” “I Met at Eve,” “Blackbird,” “Share the Light”
They may not qualify as an undiscovered gem, exactly, but Salt House is a band that could certainly do with more attention, especially from this side of the Atlantic. The Scottish trio (originally a quartet in the early 2010s prior to some personnel changes) has fashioned a gorgeously intimate sound built around contemplative, pastoral songwriting steeped in folk song and literary traditions, along with contemporary acoustic styles – including 1960s/70s UK blues-folk – and, most of all, matchless solo and harmony singing.
The band’s songs are thematically rooted in the natural world and celebrate the rural domain as a source of enduring fellowship and inner strength, as opposed to simply a temporary refuge. It’s not an overstatement to observe that, during Salt House’s lifespan, modern society has become increasingly fraught, disconnected and isolating, so in that spirit the trio offer this new album as a means of encouraging “hope, community and sharing light.”
“Scarrow” (a Scots word defined here as “faint light, reflection, the shadow of
a crow or hill, the faint light from a wall [and] something gleaming intermittently or indistinctly”) introduces a new band member in Hughes, replacing long-timer Lauren MacColl, and also represents something of a return to form: About half of their previous release, “Riverwoods,” was instrumental tracks which, while pleasant enough on their own terms, simply don’t represent Salt House’s core strength – its singing.
Sturgeon is hands down one of the best vocalists in the UK folk scene, empathetic and soulful without being maudlin, as demonstrated on “Fathoms,” a sorrowful, dignified lament for a drowned lover. Hughes’ voice is bright and inviting, especially on her debut track, the take-courage, affirming “Take This Day.” And then there’s MacPherson’s mellow, understated tones, notably on his declaration of defiance, “Horizon,” to which he adds fingerpicked guitar straight out of the Bert Jansch mold. The band’s instrumental prowess – as accompaniment rather than lead – is as strong as ever: Listen to Hughes’ fiddle interweaving around Sturgeon’s purely lovely lead on “Blackbird” (which, no, has nothing to do with the Lennon-McCartney classic), or Sturgeon’s gentle piano and Hughes’ viola, alongside a restrained percussion backing, on “Underwing.”
It’s on tracks like “Cut Him Out in Little Stars,” led by MacPherson, where the strands really come together – vocals, accompaniment, writing and most of all, the theme of unified resilience, as expressed in the chorus:
Ordinary sorrows, ordinary joys
Singing all our stories with one voice
Storms will rage upon us, never turn away
Sorrow says to joy “It’s time to stay”
Principal Personnel: Sophie Lavoie (vocals, fiddle, piano, foot percussion),
Fiachra O’Regan (vocals, uilleann pipes, whistle, banjo), François-Félix Roy (guitar, foot percussion)
Distinctive Tracks: “Gráinne Mhaol aux cheveux de braise,” “Johnny Seoighe le survenant,” “Padraic Pearse’s Set,” “Victor Delamarre - Louis Cyr en 6-8,” “Louis Riel l'exilé,” “Máire Gaillimhe/The Rocky Road to Dublin,” “Mathilde la dame blanche/Seanamhac Tube Station”
Now into its second decade, Grosse Isle continues to champion the links between Irish and Quebecois history, culture and, of course, music – all represented by the band’s name, a reference to the former way station on the St. Lawrence River in Quebec for Irish fleeing the Great Famine, and also the largest burial ground for famine refugees outside of Ireland. The trio’s first album since 2021 introduces a new member in Roy, who succeeds André Marchand.
The focus of “Homérique” – as reflected in the title, the French adjective derived from the Greek poet – is on epic characters and, by extension, their hold on the popular imagination. Three of the tracks are songs written by Lavoie: “Gráinne Mhaol aux cheveux de braise,” a retelling of the improbable meeting between the Irish “pirate queen” Gráinne and Queen Elizabeth I (as inspiration, Lavoie credits Pádraig Pearse’s adaptation of the traditional song "Óró, sé do bheatha 'bhaile," with its references to Gráinne); “Mathilde la dame blanche,” about Quebec’s “lady in white” Mathilde Robin, whose ghost is said to haunt Montmorency Falls, where she killed herself over the death of her fiancé; and “Etienne Hébert d'Acadie,” who after being swept up in the 18th-century British expulsion of Acadians set out on a decade-long, ultimately successful search for his three brothers and best friend.
Other songs come from Quebec and Irish traditions, including the sean-nos song “Eileanóir a Rún,” written by a 17th-century harpist to (the story goes) woo the bride-to-be at the wedding for which he was hired to perform, and “White & Murphy,” a tragic English-language ballad sourced from the late Irish singer Jimmy Kelly of Quebec, known for his repertoire of songs from Quebec and New England lumber camps.
All are a pleasure to listen to. Lavoie’s voice has a no-nonsense, riveting quality to it that compels you to listen even if you don’t understand French (there are no translations provided for the songs in French or Gaelic); O’Regan, who joins Lavoie on the chorus for “Gráinne Mhaol aux cheveux de braise,” gives a fine solo rendition of “Eileanóir a Rún” accentuated by Lavoie’s parlor-style piano.
But there’s no ignoring the album’s instrumental tracks, with Lavoie’s dexterous fiddle – she works well equally in the Irish and Quebec traditions – and O’Regan’s masterful touches on “Máire Gaillimhe/The Rocky Road to Dublin,” among others; nor is there any overlooking Roy, who undergirds the tunes with his excellent foot percussion and guitar work (he also provides tasteful accompaniment to songs like “Johnny Seoighe le survenant,” Lavoie’s French setting of a Great Famine-era Connemara sean-nos song). In addition to the traditional tunes, there are two originals by Lavoie – “Pleinie Lune” and “Victor Delamarre” – as well as Paddy O’Brien’s “Coming of Spring” and John Carty’s “Seanamhac Tube Station” (coming at the end of “Mathilde la dame blanche,” no less).
The final track, “Louis Riel l’exile,” concerns the 19th-century Canadian politician who championed the rights of the Métis, a mixed-race indigenous people in the Northwest Territories. Riel was a controversial figure, executed by the government for the death of a Canadian nationalist, but this adaptation of his text written during his five-year exile in the US describes his heartfelt longing to see his beloved sister. In Grosse Isle’s adaptation, the verses are in the original French, the chorus in English, sung by Lavoie and O’Regan:
With all my heart I bid you welcome
Oh, let me hold you close to my breast
Now that we are once more together
How content my heart does rest
Here, “Homérique”’s sleeve notes deserve acknowledgement, too, not just for the information about the songs and tunes but in noting similarities between Riel and Pearse (who is commemorated elsewhere on the album in an instrumental set): poets and writers, both resolute in the preservation of their respective cultures, who became political activists and leaders and drafted proclamations for their respective causes, and were executed at a young age. It reminds us that truly epic characters – whether from Ireland, Quebec and elsewhere – were not pop culture creations, but often complicated and sometimes tragic figures. In other words, real people.
