“There are simply two types of string quartets,” Boston Classical Review would have you know. “The Danish, and the others.” One thing that sets this foursome apart is their attachment to traditional folk music of their part of the world. Extending the franchise established by their albums Wood Works (Da Capo, 2014) and Last Leaf (2017, ECM New Series), they now present Keel Road with songs of the North Sea—from Norway and Denmark, up and away to the remote Faroe Islands, and back down to England and Ireland. A “keel,” of course, is the figurative “backbone” of a ship, running the length of the hull from stem to stern. And the album title is what literary scholars call a kenning—the kind of metaphorical paraphrase at the heart of Icelandic, Old Norse, and Anglo-Saxon poetry. The kenning hronrad, which you’ll find in Beowulf, translates literally as “whale’s road.” Like other modern renderings—among them Seamus Heaney’s “eel road” and “seal road”—“keel road” designates the sea. —Matthew Gurewitsch

Keel Road debuts on August 30, and will be available for streaming on Spotify, Apple Music, and other platforms.