Early 17th-century London was a beehive of musical activity, from the refined music of the Elizabethan and Jacobean courts to country dancing on the green to the broadside ballads sold on every street corner. In our first studio album after 14 years together, we explore this spectrum with music for broken consort from Morley’s Consort Lessons and the Cambridge Consort Books, as well as ballads and dance tunes from the Pepys and Roxburghe ballad collections and Playford’s Dancing Master. The genteel sounds of the English consort are paired with lively original arrangements of songs about epic battles, the timeless knack of musicians for getting into trouble, and that most perennial of all subjects, beer.

with Michael Barrett, voice, recorder; Nathaniel Cox, bandora; Mark Rimple, cittern
recorded 2016 at Rotary Records, West Springfield, MA