Celtic Folksters Lo & the High Road Release Enchanting New Single “Lanterns in the Mist”
Folk group Lo & the High Road invite listeners into a twilight world of myth, music, and magical ambiguity with their new single “Lanterns in the Mist,” out now. Weaving together Celtic instrumentation and modern folk storytelling, the track continues the ensemble’s tradition of grounding fantasy in emotional truth, set to a soundscape of bouzouki, bodhrán, fiddle, and harmonized vocals that feel like they’ve wandered out of the fog between dreams and daybreak.
Led by Lauren Halász (vocals, bass, bodhrán, whistle) and Colin McMahon (guitar, mandolin, bouzouki, production), the Cobourg-based project draws inspiration from folklore, fairy tales, and the living tradition of Celtic music. “This song is from the perspective of a child who is being stolen away by fairies,” explains Lauren. “It’s a theme in stories from cultures all over the world. Sometimes they’re taken for sinister reasons, sometimes to be saved. We wanted to leave that question open”.
Musically, the song plays in that same liminal space—balancing ethereal beauty with unease.
“When Lo brought me the lyrics, I was struck by the darkness,” says Colin. “But what I heard was something energetic, almost danceable. So we settled into that tension—between wonder and danger, between the comforting past and the unknown world ahead”.
The lyrics are poetry in motion: “Listen, they are calling me away / to a land in between the night and day / with voices that are clearer than the church bells…”. It’s a sonic invitation to follow the fairies through oak and ash, to leave behind kings and crowns, and wander into a world where dew tastes like honey and violins shimmer with gold. The fairies—sung in wispy three-part harmony—are at once alluring and untrustworthy, leaving the listener suspended in longing.
Lo & the High Road has developed a devoted international following of over 200,000 fans online, many of whom use their music as soundtracks for Dungeons & Dragons campaigns, woodland weddings, and even Renaissance Faires. Their first album Jackalope Tales (& other stories) reached over a million streams and established the band as an emerging voice in Canada’s modern folk scene.
“Lanterns in the Mist” is the band’s latest exploration of myth, music, and meaning—a song that resonates with anyone looking for escape, imagination, or even healing.
“I think I wrote this song as a coping mechanism,” says Lauren. “Sometimes we all need a space between worlds to rest. A place where the land is healthy and we are safe. A place to keep our lanterns lit”.
Following the release of the single, Lo & the High Road will bring their haunting harmonies and rich arrangements to Ontario stages throughout the summer:
Lo & the High Road – 2025 Tour Dates
- August 10 – Summer Music in the Garden – Toronto, ON
- September 12 – Victoria Hall – Cobourg, ON
Fans of Celtic traditions, fantasy storytelling, and indie folk revival will find themselves at home in the mossy, melodic world Lo & the High Road continues to build.
“We’re not trying to escape reality,” says Colin. “We’re trying to build bridges between the old stories and the ones we’re still writing.”
Hi, Lo! Good to meet you! Care to introduce yourself to the readers for those not familiar with your music?
It’s great to meet you too!
“Lo & the High Road” is a folk project made by myself and producer/mandolinist/ arranger Colin McMahon. We’re currently based out of Cobourg, Ontario. We’re both classical musicians who have gone astray, and we now make Celtic and fantasy-inspired folk music. We record and play a combination of traditional music, largely from Scotland, Ireland, and Eastern Canada, and original music.
We frequently have guest artists on our tracks and at our live performances. In particular, our background vocalist, Christine Rabey, and violinist, Jordan Baldwin, are pretty integral to our sound.
What inspired you to tell this story from a child’s point of view—and why fairies as the storytellers?
I was actually inspired by an art song by Franz Schubert, with text by Goethe, called “Erlkönig”. It’s a conversation between a father and son, who are riding on horseback late into the night. The son hears the Erlking, or elf-king, call out to him, promising him wonderful things in the fairy realm. The father is convinced it is only fog, or the wind. At the end of the song, the elf-king touches the boy, and he passes away in his father’s arms.
I came across this song while I was studying classical music in university, and was drawn in by both the story and Schubert’s take on it, musically. It’s a very sinister depiction. In folklore, fairies kidnap children for many reasons.
Sometimes they think human children are more beautiful than their own, so they covet them. Other times they want to have them for dinner. In happier stories, fairies might take away a neglected or abused child to give them a better life in the fairy realm.
“Lanterns in the Mist” re-tells this story through the eyes of a child who believes the fairies are kind and welcoming. What happens to the child after the song is up to the listener. I wanted to contrast the solo melody of the “child’s voice” with the three part harmony of “the fairies” to make the story more immersive. Most of the time I sing this song, I imagine it ends happily for the child. Most of the time.
What was the first lyric or musical phrase that sparked the writing of “Lanterns in the Mist”?
The first line that popped into my head was the beginning of the chorus: “listen, they are calling me away”. I loved the idea of, immediately after that line, adding fairy-like harmonies so that the listener can hear what the child character is hearing. The rest of the chorus soon followed. In my head, the protagonist lives in a bit of a historical world, and the most beautiful sound that they have ever heard before this moment is the ringing of church bells. That’s where “with voices that are clearer than the church bells, can you hear them?” came from.
I originally wanted this song to be a slow ballad, but Colin decided on a pretty upbeat mandolin and guitar line, contrasting with the smooth vocal melody. I really love the effect of that contrast.
With your music often used in fantasy spaces like D&D campaigns, do you write with those settings in mind, or is that a happy accident?
We both love fantasy stories, folklore, and historical fiction, and we love writing with the idea of a fantasy world in mind. Lyrically, we keep things a little more old-fashioned. Since we both have a background in classical music, some of that sound finds its way into our tracks, whether we plan for it or not. A lot of people associate that sound with adventure or fantasy.
We also happen to play D&D ourselves, so we’re no strangers to curating gaming playlists. It makes total sense to us that our music finds its way into those settings. Though we don’t write expressly for that purpose, we do try to write music that gives us the same feeling that our favourite fantasy stories do.
What do you hope people feel—or maybe even heal—when they follow the “Lanterns in the Mist”?
Though I wrote this song from a child’s perspective, when you step back and look at the lyrics, it’s not necessarily explicit. I think anyone who listens to it could relate to the idea of longing for a better world, hoping that there is still magic and mystery hidden in beautiful places. I also hope the music makes them feel like dancing!
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