La Mistrine

Editors’ Notes La Bottine Souriante’s four-piece horn section kicked into high gear on the Quebec folk champions' eighth album. Adding brass to a Celtic string band turns out to be a colorful, intoxicating, and slightly surreal notion, befitting an album that opens with a reel dedicated to flying saucers. The collection's loose Middle Ages theme emerges in a high-spirited take on Michel Rivard's devilish tall tale "Martin de la chasse-galerie," but don't be fooled: This is folk modernism at its finest.