Los Angeles (California), USA - Virtuoso piper Eric Rigler and his Celtic-flavored, world music band Bad Haggis, will release a long-awaited fourth recording, Wine Dark Sea. The presentation will take place October 8-9 in Ventura, California, at the Seaside Scottish Highland Games.

Wine Dark Sea with its 11 original tracks joins Bad Haggis’s previously released Ark and Trip albums and its award-nominated 2004 DVD Spam featuring salsa sensation Rubén Blades. The new disc includes “Cinderella Man,” original closing credits music Rigler wrote and performed for the 2005 film of the same name starring Russell Crowe, as well as “Barcos” co-written by Blades.

Bad Haggis features Rigler whose bagpipes and whistles are heard on more than 50 film soundtracks, from Hollywood blockbusters Braveheart and Titanic to the 2005 Oscar winner Million Dollar Baby. Bad Haggis comprises Rigler on Scottish and Irish bagpipes and various whistles, Mick Linden on bass guitar, Mike Hoffmann on lead guitar, Rogerio Jardim on drums and Alberto Lopez on percussion. All five players write songs for the band and contribute vocals.

Based in Los Angeles, the band has toured the Midwest twice and made important debuts at the nation’s two largest Irish events – Milwaukee’s Irish Festival (in 2004) and Dublin, Ohio’s Irish Festival (in 2005). Earlier tours in Scotland and Spain found their concerts televised by the BBC and Spanish TV.

In 2005 Bad Haggis played at Scottish and Irish festivals throughout California, returned to Spain for concerts and joined fellow Celtic band Seven Nations on tour in Florida, including a debut at the Dunedin Celtic Festival.

As a soloist, Eric Rigler celebrated Oscar wins for Million Dollar Baby, the film in which he appeared as a musician and for which he recorded the soundtrack (written by actor/director Clint Eastwood), played with the San Diego Symphony in St. Patrick’s Day concerts, then toured in Japan, all in 2005.

Best known for his work with composer James Horner on film scores for Titanic and Braveheart, Eric Rigler also is heard on Troy, Master and Commander - The Far Side of the World, Ladder 49, Road to Perdition, Death to Smoochy, Austin Powers - The Spy Who Shagged Me, Bobby Jones, Stroke of Genius and many others. Rigler also has recorded more than 100 albums with various artists such as Phil Collins, Rod Stewart, Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey, Rod Stewart, Barbra Streisand, Josh Groban and Tracy Chapman, to name a few. He’s also heard and sometimes seen on A&E television’s “Crossing Jordan” as well as on JAG, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and others, and he was the piper who led former President Ronald Reagan’s burial, televised worldwide.