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album reviews

Quebecois Music

Album review: Enregistré Live, by Genticorum

And because I’ve managed to go more than five minutes around here without talking about Quebecois music, let’s correct that little problem, shall we? Because my boys of Genticorum have just put out a shiny brand new album, and if you have any interest in Quebecois trad whatsoever…. actually, chances are you already know about this album and you probably even heard about it before I did! But that said, if you’re one of my readers and you’ve seen me enthusing over Quebec trad and you want to check it out for the first time, you could do a hell of a lot worse than picking up Enregistré Live.

When it comes to Quebec trad, okay yeah, I gravitate to the powerhouse bands. Give me Le Vent du Nord and their hurdy-gurdy goodness, or La Bottine Souriante and the sheer unmitigated awesome of their entire horn section. Or the Charbonniers, who pull off the impressive feat of matching La Bottine in power with nothing more than five voices and ten feet. Genticorum is subtler and more deft than these groups in some ways, though, and not just because a flute being one of their primary instruments contributes a certain delicacy of style. This manifests as well in the swift, light podorythmie from fiddler Pascal Gemme, the nimble guitar from Yann Falquet, and the delivery of their vocals.

Did I mention this is Genticorum’s first live album? Since I’ve had the distinct pleasure of seeing them in concert, I was particularly excited about picking this album up. I wanted to see if it captured the energy of the concert I’d previously experienced, and I wasn’t disappointed in the slightest. The between-song intros are minimal, so if you don’t speak French, or if you have enough to follow song lyrics but not stage intros, there won’t be much to interrupt the music for you. (For me, though, I also quite enjoy trying to figure out what the boys are saying about the songs–it’s an excellent way to practice French if, like me, you’re learning!)

Because of course, the songs are the point of the album. There are a couple of tracks here that were familiar to me from the studio albums I’d bought, like the dextrous “La brunante”, where Alexandre de Groisbois-Garand shines on his flute. And the big closer, “La chasse”, is one of my repeat play tracks from their very first album; this is a particularly awesome one since the boys are in high form, and they get the audience going too. The very last track, presumably an encore, was also familiar to me–but because I’d encountered it before on a Galant, Tu Perds Ton Temps album! “La valse turluttée” worked very well by the Galant girls as a complex a capella piece, but it works splendidly here with Alexandre’s flute too.

Of the tracks I didn’t recognize going in, I particularly liked “La finno-gaspésienne”, another deft instrumental; “Déline”, featuring lovely vocals, and especially “La rouillette”, another vocal number, but one which gives each of the boys a chance to sing lead (and Pascal to delightfully milk the hell out of his turn), and which has fun overall structure as a song. (And you can find this one on YouTube! Clickie!)

The album’s not released in the States yet, so right now your options I’m aware of for getting your hands on it are Amazon US, Amazon CA, Archambault in Quebec, Reynaud-Bray in Quebec, and the Canada iTunes store.

But I’d strongly encourage you to keep an eye out on their website for further updates! Or follow them on Twitter or on Facebook. And tell them Anna sent you!

ETA: Bonjour, all you Genticorum fans! Gracious, a lot of you have found this post.

June 5, 2013 by
Quebecois Music

Album review: Errance, by Bon Debarras

I give an awful lot of fangirling time to Le Vent du Nord, De Temps Antan, and the Charbonniers, it’s true–but there is a lot more to be found in the genre of Quebecois trad, and I’ve got quite a few other groups represented in my collection at this point. One of these is Bon Débarras, who Dara and I had the pleasure of seeing perform at last year’s Festival du Bois. They are a very lively trio, melding American and Quebecois influences to form a distinct sound all their own. It’s very worth seeing them perform live, since Dominic Desrochers is an excellent dancer. But if you can’t pull off getting to a show, their albums are the next best thing!

Errance by Bon Debarras

Errance by Bon Debarras

Their second album Errance has just dropped, and I am delighted to report that I enjoyed the hell out of it. You’ll find those American influences I mentioned all over this album–things like using a washboard for percussion as much as they do the feet. Or their vocal style, which rings very familiar to my Midwest-bred ears despite the lyrics being in French; I hear a lot of echoes of country or bluegrass or rockabilly in their singing. Or the particular mix of instrumentation, particularly banjo and harmonica, which carries the same sort of echoes for me as the vocals.

Track-by-track reactions behind the fold!

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April 27, 2013 by
Quebecois Music

Tromper le Temps by Le Vent du Nord: A fangirly and footnoted album review!

How much do the gods of all music love me this month? This much: they have given unto me the shining present of the brand new Le Vent du Nord album, Tromper le Temps! Now, mind you, its official release date on CD is the 25th–but it’s shown up early on the iTunes and Amazon MP3 stores, and I could not resist the musical shininess. I will, however, also be buying the CD. Because this album? So awesome I am buying it twice! Now that I have it, though, I can present for you a review! And in honor of Le Vent du Nord’s native language, I now present to you the first paragraph of this review of this album, en français1 2!

Vous savez déjà, mes amis d’Internet, que j’ai une grande admiration3 pour Le Vent du Nord, le premier groupe à contester Great Big Sea pour mes affections! Il n’est donc pas surprenant que j’aime ce nouvel album. J’aime son esprit. J’aime ses souliers4. J’aime son énergie, son harmonie, et les histoires qui m’attendent dans les paroles. J’aime cet album tellement je vais l’acheter à deux reprises, sur iTunes et sur CD! Et je vous exhorte tous à l’acheter aussi, parce qu’il est beau et impressionnant!

(Okay, that’s about as much French as I can coherently manage in one blog post.5 The Too Long; Didn’t Read Because I Don’t Understand French version: buy this album, because it is a thing of beauty and the boys of Le Vent du Nord are awesome. Tell them I sent you!)

Full review, including song-by-song reactions, behind the fold!

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April 21, 2012 by
Quebecois Music

Album review: N2, by Norouet

Here’s something I’ve come to learn in my explorations of current Quebecois trad bands: Éric Beaudry is apparently in half of them, or at least so it seems! And given my rapidly growing respect for Monsieur Beaudry’s musical prowess, this is as far as I’m concerned all to the awesome.

I’ve found references to him being in four bands to date. La Bottine Souriante and De Temps Antan I’ve already found and fallen in love with, but M. Beaudry is also involved with the bands Norouet and Ni Sarpe Ni Branche. Those two groups aren’t as high profile as La Bottine and De Temps Antan, so their music is harder for us in the States to find–but happily, Norouet’s album N2 is on iTunes and CD Baby.

“Norouet”, or so the Googles inform me, is slang for a northwesterly gale. It’s an excellent word, very much capturing the energy of the band while falling delicately upon the ear. This seeming contradiction of a gale and delicacy captures my overall impression of N2 as an album, as well.

N2 slants heavily instrumental, with over half the tracks being entirely without vocals. This is not a bad thing, though initially I found it a bit odd that their overall (instrumental, at least) sound reminds me a lot more of Solas or Altan from Celtic/Irish music than other Quebecois bands that boast M. Beaudry among their members. The distinct lack of footwork on several of the tracks throws me off, since I’ve trained my ear to listen for that now!

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February 10, 2012 by
Quebecois Music

La Bottine Souriante album review!

I’ve been anticipating the new album by La Bottine Souriante for weeks now, and WOO! It’s finally out! The album’s called Appellation D’Origine Contrôlée, and I yoinked that thing right down from iTunes as soon as I saw it go up.

For my first exposure to the band’s current lineup, it performed splendidly. I had an undeniable initial “buh?” reaction to several of the tracks–because I have of course imprinted on a lot of the earlier La Bottine albums as my example of what they should sound like, and that’s not entirely fair to the newer members. Yes, vintage La Bottine is a POWERHOUSE OF AWESOME, and those are mighty large (smiling, aheh) boots to fill. I’m now quite prepared to state that the newer members are also awesome, but you have to go in with an open mind and open ear. Since there are so many new people in the lineup, the overall flavor and chemistry of the band is not the same, and so it’s necessary to judge the current lineup on their own merits and less on how much they sound like all the people that came before them (though I’m not discounting that, either).

On the whole I do quite like this album. After the first listen, I was a bit dubious. But after two more, I found it growing on me considerably. Granted, I was predisposed to like it anyway just because Éric Beaudry sings many of the songs–but on the other hand, his presence in the vocals was actually also kind of confusing to my ear! I’ve gotten used to hearing him as part of De Temps Antan as well as on his album with his brother Simon, so hearing him in this context is something I’m not quite used to yet.

There are two other gentlemen singing lead on the album as well, for whom I do not yet have names, and both of them did a fine job. The presence of so many backup singers makes for nice round vocals on many of the tracks.

Instrumentally, overall, the horns are sometimes more subdued than I might like–but again, a good chunk of that is coming out of my exposure to vintage La Bottine. When I cut back on that reaction and judge the blend of the horns with the rest of the instruments they’re playing with, I feel much better about them.

And now, track by track reactions!

Cette Bouteille-Là – I really like this one, which was the first of the free tracks the band was offering for download just before the album came out. This has an excellent blend of all the instruments and voices, and some jaunty energy to it. This is a great track for showing how the current membership of the band are inheriting from the older members.

Mon Père – Ah and here we have Éric Beaudry’s first lead song on the album! This has strong vocals in general, not only M. Beaudry’s, but also all the backup vocals. Some great deep vocals in the background, and all of the voices are set off nicely against the percussion. I particularly groove on M. Beaudry hitting his high notes in the background on the very last few bars of the song.

Reel à Roland – This is an instrumental, and starts off sounding fairly standard until the horns start coming in on the second iteration of the A part. Once the horns and piano build up, you start thinking, okay yeah, this is La Bottine Souriante.

Le Gourmand – Back to M. Beaudry on the lead vocals, which is always a good thing, though this is one of the songs on the album that kept making me think “wait wait this isn’t a De Temps Antan song”? Mais non, because there are horns here, and a lot more backup vocals! Also, M. Beaudry is rather more expressive on his vocals here than I’ve heard him be with De Temps Antan so far, possibly because he’s doing more lead singing here.

Chus Chatouilleux – Good strong punch from the horns to start this one up. I don’t know who’s singing here since I don’t know all of the current lineup of the band yet, but the singing’s good. It’s a bit weird for me though since whoever’s doing this singing has an accent similar to the lead singer over in Mes Aieux, so I’m once again having to remind myself that this is in fact a La Bottine Souriante album. When in doubt, listen for the horns.

André Alain en sol majeur – Another instrumental. It sounds like there’s a keyboard in here, which is another thing I’m not used to yet with the current La Bottine lineup. There’s a bridge in the middle with a keyboard solo, which gives this piece an almost jazzy feel. I find myself wishing that the horns were doing more than just backing up the keyboard, though; I really want to hear some trumpet love on the melody line.

Au Rang D’aimer – Back to Éric! A more plaintive ditty, this one, but nice full vocals.

Intsusadi – This is a good one! I don’t know what’s doing the main percussive line here–a steel drum? It’s a new sound for me in my La Bottine experience, regardless, and it makes this one the most interesting instrumental on the album for me.

Reel Calgary – While the previous was perhaps the most interesting instrumental, this one is nonetheless very appealing to me. Nice fiddle and footwork. As with track 3, the horns are pretty subdued–more than I might perhaps like. But on the other hand, they’re coming in at a good balance with the rest of the instruments and the overall somewhat wistful flavor of the piece.

On Va Barrer Les Portes – The other La Bottine singer I don’t know yet, but this is the same gent who sings lead on track 1. This song’s primarily vocal call-and-response, with just piano and footwork on the verses, until the horns and fiddle come in on a nice jaunty bridge. That bridge? That’s what I listen to La Bottine Souriante FOR.

Pèle-Mèle – One more Éric song! Good big fat bridge from the horns and keyboard.

Le Baillard – The album’s final track is one more instrumental, and a good long, strong one as well, layering in all the various instruments and letting them build power at a good pace. By the time you’re three minutes into the track, oh yeah, there’s excellent muscle to the horns here. And about halfway through, an excellent stomping bit! This one reassures me that while I may miss the powerhouse of awesome that was vintage La Bottine, modern La Bottine can bring it too.

Long story short, if you’re into Quebecois music or think you might want to be, yes, you should buy this album. I was delighted to see it go live on iTunes AND on the Amazon MP3 downloads store for purchase, which means it’s readily available to US customers. Their record label also has it available for purchase right over here!

November 22, 2011 by
Quebecois Music

Mes Aieux En Famille album review!

Since userinfoscrunchions was asking, and since she’s the person who pointed me at Mes Aieux to begin with, here’s my overall reaction to the album I bought in Vancouver, En Famille!

This is a bit of a switch from the rest of the Quebecois music I’ve been listening to. From what I’m learning, this group’s more about modern lyrics than trad ones, although their style is still trad-influenced. Wikipedia describes them as “neo-trad”, a specifically Quebecois sub-genre, and that’s a term I really rather like as it seems to encompass not only the Quebecois music I like to listen to, but also the Newfoundland music. It nicely captures the sense of music that’s a fusion of both traditional and rock.

Now, given that we are dealing with French lyrics here, I’m still at a disadvantage–and given that Mes Aieux’s site doesn’t have lyrics posted on it, I’m going to have to doublecheck the liner notes of this album to see if they’re included so I can try to translate them. I’m given to understand that a lot of Mes Aieux’s lyrical topics are focused on life in Montreal, and out of general interest in that, I’d like to know what they’re actually saying! For now, though, I’ll have to focus just on the overall flavor and style of the songs.

I very much like the first track, “Dégénération”, the track that userinfoscrunchions pointed me at on YouTube. The vocals and instrumentation are both very strong, and I also like the reel they kick into at the end! Fortunately also, this is one song someone’s already translated online, and yeah, this is a good example of Mes Aieux’s whole idea of modern themes, trad style of performance. Especially the part in the last verse about turning off the TV and going outside. 😉

The rest of the vocals all over the album have the distinction of including both female and male voices, which by itself gives Mes Aieux some distinction in my Quebecois collection of music so far. They’re also a bit larger a group, with seven strong, so they’ve got more vocalists to play with, and I do quite like some of the tricks they’re doing with layering lead and backup voices.

They do also have more instruments to play with. I hear horns, electric guitar, and a drum kit in there, as well as fiddle and flute, so we’ve got a modern and trad blend of instrumentation, too. Stylistically they’re definitely more rock than trad, though this is not a bad thing. I definitely like the horn section rocking out on track 6, though all the electric guitar and drum kit work is taking me a bit aback, since my ear is geared these days to acoustic instruments!

As I’ve said, I have no French to speak of (aside from a tiny assortment of nouns and pronouns and the occasional verb and preposition), so I have no earthly idea about any local differences in Quebecois pronunciation–but that said, the primary singers in Mes Aieux seem to be pronouncing things more crisply and distinctly than most of the singers on my various other albums. I don’t know if this is a question of individual singing style, or a question of dialect; either way, it’s another interesting data point for me, and one which I hope to learn more about if I get an opportunity to properly learn Quebecois French.

I’m not a hundred percent sure about this, but I’m hearing only minimal podorythmie on this album, if there’s any at all; most of the percussion I’m hearing is more standard rock percussion. There are, however, occasional bits of tracks where I’m hearing something that might be footwork. If that’s what it is, it’s much less emphasized than it is in the more trad-oriented groups. This doesn’t surprise me much, given that Mes Aieux is more rock. It’s a bit weird, though, not hearing the footwork in conjunction with lyrics sung in French!

Some more specific track reactions:

I’m really liking the vocals on track 7, “La Grande Déclaration”. It’s a quieter track, and although I have not an earthly what they’re singing about, the vocals are really nice, and there’s some good fiddle and guitar (both electric and acoustic, it sounds like) and piano here.

Interesting growly-talky delivery of lyrics on the verses on track 8, too; it’s almost rap-like, but not quite there, since it’s still a bit too melodic for that. It’s good, though, and I’m respecting whichever singer in the group this is. (Whoa wait, there are English lyrics in this song! Surprise!)

I totally need the lyrics to track 9 on here, which I am given to understand is about poutine. HA!

Track 10 is pretty cool, with fun delivery of lyrics and some good fiddle and horn. And ooh, is that a harmonica in there?

Liking track 11, too–in no small part because the band’s female vocalist is getting some lead time here. Awesome.

All in all, the album’s not necessarily grabbing me right out of the gate like the more trad bands do. But that said, I’m definitely enjoying it and will probably get more of Mes Aieux’s music, probably their most recent album. Thanks, userinfoscrunchions, for recommending them!

October 5, 2011 by
Quebecois Music

Le Vent du Nord Symphonique album review!

Here’s another thing I’m going to do a whole separate post about from this week’s Vancouver goodness: while I was up there, I made a very specific point of ducking into the HMV in downtown Vancouver, my current only source for Quebecois music when I go up there. And much to my pleasure, they had the one remaining Le Vent du Nord album I didn’t have yet: Symphonique, which is Le Vent du Nord pretty much doing a full concert backed up by the Quebec Symphony Orchestra! As both a newly minted LVN fangirl and a piccolo player who still has very fond memories of her high school days in concert band and wind ensemble, it’s my beholden duty to do a proper review post of this album.

I have only minor quibbles with it, and they mostly have to do with the mixing of the LVN instruments vs. those of the orchestra behind them. As a casual listener it’s not clear to me what the musical intent here is: whether LVN should be seamlessly blending with the orchestra, or whether you should still be able to distinguish, oh, say, Olivier Demers’ violin vs. the violin section in the orchestra. It’s easier with Nicolas Boulerice on the hurdy gurdy, since the sound is so distinctive. But I frequently lost M. Demers’ violin against the rest of them, as well as his footwork. In some places as well, such as in “Rosette”, the boys’ vocals were a bit overwhelmed by the orchestra.

And I’ll say right out that although I adore “Cre-mardi”, and while the orchestra did perfectly decent punctuation to the rhythm of the song, it just didn’t sound nearly as awesome as when it’s done as a proper crowd-rousing foot-stomper–like in this video right over here! That song right there is very specifically why I want to see LVN live, since it’s so far their liveliest, audience-participation-iest song, and I am quite prepared to hey-up-a-diddle-um-day-da right back at ’em. 😉

But really, these are fairly minor quibbles. On several of these tracks, the orchestra actually blends quite beautifully with the band. The instrumentals in particular are awesome: “L’heure bleue”, and “Petit reve III”. On those tracks, they achieve the exact right balance between the band’s instruments and the orchestra’s. “Elise” and “Les amants du Saint-Laurent” work well as examples of tracks where the orchestra enhances the overall flavor of the song, and where they don’t overwhelm the band’s vocals.

Also, I have to give the album mad props just for being the only current recorded version of Simon Beaudry singing “Vive l’amour”, since the studio version of this song was done before he joined the band. And on LVN’s previous live album, Mesdames et messieurs, they brought back the original guy who sang lead on that track for that performance!

And while we’re on the topic of M. Beaudry, his other major song on this album is “Lanlaire”, which as y’all know I’m already strongly partial to. So I made a point of listening more closer to this song than several of the others–and I do quite like the drum strikes in the background on the second verse. Well done back there, timpani player! And since I’m trying to commit M. Demers’ nameless bridge/outro bit to memory, I also noted that the orchestra did not fully accompany him on those parts, but they did echo him on several passages nicely. There’s some nice swooping from the strings back there, too.

Someone–either M. Demers or else a soloist from the violin section, it’s not clear to me which since it’s not called out in the liner notes, and I don’t know the original studio version well enough to say for certain yet–has a nice bit in the middle of the second to the last track: “Octobre 1837”. In the bridge in the middle, the performer does some tricky-sounding descending syncopation with his fiddle on top of the rest of the instruments, and gets some well-deserved applause right in the middle of the song after that. Well done there, whoever you were!

M. Boulerice fares the best out of the band in the overall mix, I think. His voice is more powerful than M. Beaudry’s, so he stands out better against the orchestra–and for that matter, so does his hurdy gurdy. (Also: as a former symphonic band student, I have to just giggle my head off at the mental image of the first chair of the hurdy gurdy section. But really, do you need more than one? XD )

Checking the liner notes on the album, I see that Airat Ichmouratov was apparently doing the conducting of the orchestra, and I see a total of 23 violin players, 8 viola players, 8 cellists, 5 double basses, two flutes (woo! flute section represent! And one of them’s a piccolo player! / ), two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, two trombones, one low trombone, one tuba, one timpani, two people on general percussion, and one harpist. So that’s 67 people, a pretty good-sized orchestra! I am now definitely curious about whether they’ve got some recordings of their own, and I may need to seek them out.

All in all I’m very pleased to have found a copy of this album and I’d definitely recommend it to anyone interested in the band. In several ways I actually like this performance better than the other live album, just because the orchestral angle is of more musical interest to me–though if LVN ever do a rowdier live album, I’ll be much more interested in that!

October 3, 2011 by