GENTICORUM
Nagez Rameurs
Mad River Records
1024
* * * *
Québeçois music is known for its frantic pacing and ragged
tempos, but the first track of Genticorum’s latest release signals the ways in
which this trio takes a smoother approach. The song, “Tout le long du voyage”
is a cautionary tale for young men informing them that life in Hudson’s Bay
isn’t always the stuff of romance. It has the constant clogged percussion one
expects from tunes from La Belle Province, but also polish, precision, and
deliberate timing. This is typical of Genticorum’s approach. “Turlutte hisuite,” for example, is
energetic and exciting, but listen carefully to the way in which Pascal Gemme’s
cascading fiddle runs neatly intersect the rhythms he lays down with his feet.
Listen also to the gliding wooden flute of Alexandre de Grosbois-Garand on “Les Menteries.” Genticorum delight in defying expectations. You’d expect a song
written to synchronize the strokes of rowers to be sweaty and driving, but the
title track is more of a casual glide than a strained-muscle sprint, and the
call-and-response vocals are marked by delicate harmonies. Or how about a Cape
Breton log drivers’ song (“Grand voyageur sur la drave”) as slow and
melancholy--more wistful than lustful? Mix in some pastoral waltzes, and you
have plenty of contrast for the unabashed double-time tempos of the barn
dance-like “Galope Deux Bedon,” the appropriately named “Reel Circulaire,” and
the frantic “Quand chus parti du Canada.” The last is the funniest song on the
album–a quirky tale of a French-Canadian world traveler dismayed over the
shortness of women’s skirts around the globe. For the record, I’ve chatted with
many Québeçois men over the decades, and this is not a problem that a single person has ever mentioned to me!
This is a sublime album that balances what we expect with
what we might not anticipate. Genticorum keep up us off balance to the end. The
final cut, “Canot d’écorce” pays homage to the fur-trader voyageurs who
established European colonies in Québeç, but does so with an understated
sweetness, the nonsense vocalizations of the chorus notwithstanding.--Rob Weir
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