Còig

Hot on the heels of the group’s award-winning 2017 album Rove comes the brand-new release, ASHLAR. Brimming with new ideas, and lots of energy built up from their hundreds of international performances, the band figured, “Why wait?” They packed themselves into producer Dave Gunning’s Wee House Of Music studio in Nova Scotia during a brief break in touring, and everything fell into place perfectly.

As a matter of fact, that’s what Ashlar means, a perfect fit. Fiddler Chrissy Crowley explains: “There wasn’t a particular theme to the music, it just happened naturally, everything just flowed out of us. We noticed how quickly everything came together, so I was looking for a word that summed that up. Ashlar is a type of masonry where you’re refining and refining, and you wind up with these pristine, square blocks. The idea is that these blocks should be so uniform that they fit together perfectly. Like this album, where every track fit together perfectly.”

Ashlar flows from lively sets to tender traditional ballads to fabulous covers, everything Còig is known for, but there’s a difference this time too. The album features the most tune-writing, and more vocal tracks of any of their releases. That reflects all the ideas they keep storing up, and the growing confidence they feel in their own writing and singing.