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XAVIER BODERIOU, SYLVAIN BAROU & JACQUES PELLEN Morenn Boderiou XB01/1


Piobaireachd is the classical music of the Highland bagpipe, which for centuries has been performed solo by a single piper. Those unaccustomed to piobaireachd can find it hard to follow. The Breton musicians on this CD have sought to make piobaireachd more approachable by applying a small, conserva- tive innovation that makes a big difference to the sound texture and dynamics. While the ancient pieces of Scottish piobaireachd on this album are played on the Highland bag- pipe in the traditional way by Xavier Boderi- ou, they are overlaid with Jacques Pellen’s acoustic and electric guitars and Sylvain Barou’s wooden flutes and programming. This is done in a way that adds texture and interest to the bagpipe performance, comple- menting it but not overwhelming it.


This very likeable, soothing, meditative CD deserves to please traditionalists as well as attract fresh interest in piobaireachd. It is of course no coincidence that the musicians who produced this album are Bretons. Jacques Pellen is a veteran of the glory days of the Breton folk music revival in the 1970s, when Dan Ar Braz and Alan Stivell were the first to make the electric guitar mimic the sound of the Highland bagpipe, and were the first to combine the Highland bagpipes and electric guitar in joint performance on stage.


www.boderiou.com Paul Matheson VARIOUS ARTISTS


An Easy Introduction To The Blues: Top 15 Albums Masterworks Series 703


Every fan will have their own list of favourite blues albums which may differ from those on this compact eight-CD box set. But you really can’t complain when you get such gems as Muddy Waters’ seminal At Newport, Howlin’ Wolf’s Moanin’ In The Moonlight, Jimmy Reed’s Rockin’ With Reed and Bobby Bland’s Two Steps From The Blues included in the selection. There are also two albums apiece by John Lee Hooker, Etta James, and BB King, as well as sets by Ray Charles, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson and Profes- sor Longhair. All invaluable to a blues novice, and if you have all the albums already, what a great box to have in the car!


Available from Amazon and other online sellers. Dave Peabody


POOR MAN’S FORTUNE Bayou Curious Speak Jolly Music SJM2113


In the past you’ll have read a lot in this maga- zine about Tex-Mex music; now we offer you a new genre – Tex-Bret!


This band from “The People’s Republic of


Texas” describe themselves as “North Ameri- ca’s premier exponent of the music of Brit- tany”. In truth, the range of styles that they play is much wider than this, including tracks of traditional music from Scotland, France and Ireland, as well as some fiery Cajun music and song. Actually, it’s the last named genre that make the most impact amongst some very impressive stuff and it comes as no sur- prise to read that PMF’s excellent singer and multi-instrumentalist, Beth Patterson comes from Lafayette. Of course, it helps a great deal that they have the great Cajun fiddler Michael Doucet playing on those tracks, just as it makes a mighty difference having promi- nent musicians like Brian McNeil and Jean-


Michel Veillon on the Scottish and Breton tracks respectively.


This is not to imply that the core quintet are musical slouches with 21 instruments played here between the five of them and an ease with all the genres that they tackle.


Here’s another piece of their self- description to finish with – “Rock and roll energy with the precision of a string quar- tet”. That’s pretty accurate; I wish I’d thought of that.


www.poormansfortune.com/music Vic Smith


SÖNDÖRGO Tamburocket Riverboat Records TUGCD1084


On the traditional slow boat from Budapest, the struggle upstream to nearby Szentendre takes so long that there is a sense of entering another world by the time one gets there, especially when the town is revealed as an unexpected trove of Serbian culture, architec- ture, icons and music. The Serbs fled to Szen- tendre from the Ottomans at the end of the 17th Century. Though now a community of fewer than a hundred people, they still pro- mote and preserve their traditions and enjoy a measure of local political autonomy. Family band Söndörgo come from Szentendre, and they see their mission as maintaining the tra- ditions of the Southern Slavs. Their playing does not venerate fiddle or trumpet but rather the tambura, a kind of Balkan man- dolin revealed here as a centre-stage marvel of infinite adaptability and character. Brothers Áron, Benjamin and Salamon Eredics, their cousin Dávid Eredics and their friend Attila Buzás, all pluck the tambura, while also con- tributing judicious and perfectly played bursts of trumpet, clarinet, saxophone, accordeon, flute, kaval, bass and very raw vocals.


Szentendre, of course, is a great distance from the Southern Slav communities and cul- tures that the band are interested in. Howev- er, as with every traditional band from this part of the world, their research has been made much easier by one Béla Bartók. There’s the lively and convoluted dance, Drago Kolo, collected by Bartók and played with simple fidelity here on alto and cello tambura. But there’s also a wax cylinder field recording made by Bartók in 1912, sounding radical in the context of the respectful contemporary playing that precedes it: unearthly, radio- phonic, something for the hauntology con- noisseur even. Players constantly interchange with intense and familial understanding, in a disconcerting and dazzling amalgam of tradi- tional dance and bucolic but modern trance.


Söndörgo


In Jozo, collected from the banks of the Drava river on the border of Hungary and Croatia, a heavy and sedate introduction makes way for babble and dance.


Throughout, this is freshly conceived old music, played on unfamiliar instruments, with simple arrangements in which flash has been replaced with dramatic and threatening vigour, an array of sonorous percussion and a richly detailed trance of tambura and ethere- al woodwind drone.


www.worldmusic.net John Pheby


BETTE & WALLET Électrique Own Label SAS2


In 2008 these two, Mary Beth Carty and Gabriel Ouellette released a self-produced debut album of stunning quality. Firmly based on Canada’s traditional song and dance music, it also had an innovative and creative approach which made their approach seem fresh and fascinating. This reviewer was hugely impressed.


Six years later, they come up with some- thing rather different but equally impressive.


Don’t let the title deceive you. Yes elec- tric guitars are prominent amongst the many instruments heard here but the album is rich in variety. Each time it is played in this house – and it has been on repeat play for quite a few days – it is a different track that stands out, but so far it has been impossible to play the album without flicking back to repeat play the delightful, unaccompanied The Aliens Are Nice. This is the track that shows Mary Beth’s songwriting has lost none of its quirkiness or power since the previous album, though they both contribute some fine writ- ing to tunes and musical forms taken from the tradition. Gabriel plays well and tastefully here on whatever he picks up ranging from organ to banjo. His banjo playing on the mac- aronic Boites Noires as a foil to Mary Beth’s edgy singing is another of the album’s many highlights. On this track and several others there is very effective percussion from hands and feet.


The booklet tells us that the tracks were recorded between January 2010 and Decem- ber 2013. It would seem that we are dealing with a couple of perfectionists here who won’t move on until they are entirely happy with what they have both in production (Gabriel) and in artwork and design (Mary Beth). The end product is a delight.


http://bette-wallet.com Vic Smith


Photo: Judith Burrows


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