What, you may ask, is ‘Sharig’? And it’s a perfectly good question. Not even the mighty Google can give a sensible answer to that. Unless it’s a spelling mistake. (“Did you mean ‘sharing’, O seeker of truth?”, it offers in reply. But there’s no way to answer ‘No’.) So don’t look for deep meaning in the headline image for this post; it’s a more or less random selection from the images that Google spat forth in response to my unanswerable query.
Perhaps the Anglo-Irish folk band, Flook, would be able to give a definitive answer. They should know because it is their instrumental track, Sharig/The Pipers of Roguery/The Huntsman, that is my latest Track of the Week.
Sharig … is from the album, Ancora, which was released just last month. It is the first new release by the band since 2005 and it has been getting exceptionally glowing reviews.
Wow. Just wow. . . .
[This album is] the cherry on top, the icing on the cake, the feather upon the camel’s back – whichever cliche you want to use. . . .
If you love music and have a set of functioning ears, get it and go listen. Now. It doesn’t get much better than this, ever.
Crotchety Man concurs. If Celtic folk comes within the ambit of your musical tastes, Ancora will be a rare delight. It is an album of instrumentals with unmistakeable Irish roots, but with a freshness and originality that skirts neatly around the mire of folk tune clichés.
There’s novelty in the blend of instruments, too. If there are other groups built around a classical flute, an Irish whistle, an acoustic guitar and a bodhrán they are missing from the Crotchety archives. There are very subtle hints of other instruments on Ancora, too: upright bass, piano accordion, dulcimer, steel drums, violin, cello, lap steel guitar, hurdy gurdy and theremin are all there in the background making their own contributions to the sound.
The flutes, frets and skins band, Flook
Brian Finnegan – whistles and flutes
Sarah Allen – flutes and accordion
Ed Boyd – guitar
John Joe Kelly – bodhrán
The CD is on order. Perhaps it will have sleeve notes that tell me what ‘Sharig’ means. Or perhaps, like Flook, that mysterious word is just another deliberate mis-spelling.
Crotchety Man 
One thought on “Sharig (and some)”