The Anglo-Irish folk band, Flook, have just released a new album. Its title is Sanju, which seems to be the name of a Hindu priest, an Indian cricketer, or a film about a Bollywood actor. The connection between Irish folk music and the Indian subcontinent, however, remains a mystery to me.

We first met Flook in May 2019 when these pages carried a review of a track called Sharig/The Pipers of Roguery/The Huntsman. In the nearly six years since then, Flook have continued to write and perform their brand of Irish folk music. The style hasn’t changed, the musicians haven’t changed, and the exceptional quality of their performances hasn’t wavered for an instant.

The tunes on Sanju are presented in bite-size morsels: two, three, or four portions to a track, and five generous courses to the album. It’s the musical equivalent of a tapas bar. But the food isn’t Spanish. It blends the lush green flavours of the Emerald Isle to make a meal that is simultaneously relaxing and invigorating. It will leave you warm and satiated today, but you will come back for more tomorrow. And revisit many more times in the weeks to come.

Flook‘s Sanju is very much to the Crotchety taste; I will never get fed up with it. But, I won’t complain if you want to throw in the occasional Indian dish, especially if you are leaping through a curtain of flames in celebration of Holika Dahan.