Winter in New England deters a lot of touring musicians, but not those from Quebec. If you don’t do winter, you can’t live in the PQ. Sometimes I think Québecois musicians come to Massachusetts because it’s like Miami for them.
There may not be a better band anywhere in the province than Le Vent du Nord. They’ve just been through Massachusetts with their new recording Voisinages. It roughly translates as neighbors or neighborhoods, but it’s a loaded word that can mean those next door, those who share your values, or those in the same general proximity. In other words, does Le Vent du Nord mean those who dance with them in their kitchens, those who share French language and culture, or the bad boy to the South of their borders (the United States). The short answer is yes. “Bienvenue” was written by Olivier Demers to welcome André Brunet to the band, but its flavor is that of set of tunes that begins slowly but eventually gets the dancers hot and sweaty. “L’Acadie” could be seen as Quebecois scat or mouth music, but the song’s title references a region that once stretched from Cape Breton to Louisiana; “Fleuve” is a wistful tribute to the St. Lawrence River; and “Du Nord Au Sud” is a spirited set of fiddle tunes, but the liner notes cheekily asks of the United States, “What comes next? When empires lose their marbles, we might as well try to redraw the maps!” The band positively rocks out on “Carillon.” If that sounds vaguely familiar, it’s about a battle at a fort now known as Ticonderoga. This album is brand new, so no live performance are up yet, but if you want to deeper taste of this amazing band, there are plenty of live music from previous albums. For the record, the Brunet brothers, André and the bear-like trickster Réjean, were once close neighbors of mine when I lived in Vermont and they in the village of Lacolle just across the border. They were the kind of neighbors you wanted to have!
Whilst we’re in Quebec, let’s go deeper–to the place where the St. Lawrence River widens into a bay before emptying into the Atlantic Ocean. There’s a fine trio of musicians who call themselves Grosse Isle, in part an homage to Fiachra O’Regan, who plays uillean pipes, banjo, and whistles. Let’s play the game of “one of these things are not like the others.” The lead vocalist, pianist, fiddler, and clogger is named Sophie Lavoie, and the guitarist and other clogger is Francois-Félix Roy. You probably worked out that O’Regan is Irish, so what’s he doing in a band with two Québecois musicians? It has to do with Grosse Isle whose permanent population is zero, not the one in Michigan or Manitoba. Visitors come to see the remains of the “Ellis Island of Canada.” From 1832-1937 it was a screening center for immigrants. Sometimes it was a processing center and sometimes a quarantine station for those with infectious diseases. You perhaps know that the 1840s/50s were the time of the Irish potato famine. Many Irish families passed through Grosse Isle, got better, and stayed in the Quebec City area. This means that O’Regan makes sense in a Québecois trad band, as do the band’s jigged up Irish song and tunes. The band’s latest record is titled Homérique, an energetic tribute to Irish and Québecois heroes. It opens with “Gráinne Mhaol aux Cheveux de Braise,” Lavoie’s tribute to Ireland’s “pirate queen.” (Look her up, folks!) and moves on to “Mathilde la Dame Blanche,” a woman who threw herself into Montmorency Falls and whose ghost now haunts the place. One of the more unusual hero tales is that of “Victor Delamarre,” a 5’5” weightlifter who defeated the much taller and more muscular Louis Cyr in a contest. That feat and Cyr are honored in the second part of a Lavoie-written set of tunes! The band show off their Irish chops on “Seanamhac Tube Station” and a cover of Paddy O’Brien’s “The Coming of Spring.” There are other heroes/heroines on the album. A small hint: The record is quite good–you even get a version of “Rocky Road to Dublin” (wait for it!)–but Grosse Isle is way more dynamic live. Catch them if you get a chance.
Don’t confuse Chris Rawlins with the UK mentalist of the same name. This one is an indie (for now) singer-songwriter from Chicago. His latest record is called Flyover, a pushback at the idea that Mid-America consists of “flyover” states. He likes songs that deal with memory, connections, and home. Some of his new material reveals his attraction/dissatisfaction relationship to the Midwest, which is how I’ve felt in drives from the Appalachian ridge-and-valley states to the Rockies. The flat states are fascinating, but they often feel hypnotically big in a “am I ever going to get to Ann Arbor?” way. The material on Flyover is gentle, which invites analogies to the late Tim Hardin. It also invites introspection. The song “Flyover” is enigmatic in whether it’s musing while flying or a troubled relationship song. “After Dark” is a dreaming/waking up song that contrasts how Rawlins felt as a kid and how things are different now. Rawlins states that a lot of songs began as his interpretations of snapshots and the Flyover explores ambivalence, mostly without trying to resolve it. “Anywhere” shows a weakness in the material. It’s a sweet love song, but the tune and vocal sound structurally and tonically similar to his other songs. My favorite on the record is “Firefly,” written when he visited Oregon, where no one had heard of one! It’s also about getting older and making or missing connections. “Firefly” is catchy and has more life to it.
Wouldn’t it be cool to have a trio featuring Aoife O’Donovan (Crooked Still), Sarah Jarosz (Grammy Award winner), and Sara Watkins (Nickel Back)? In case you haven’t gotten the word, there is such a trio that calls itself I’m With Her. Their latest Rounder Records release is Wild and Clear and Blue, which just happens to be up for three Grammy Awards this year. One nomination is for “Ancient Light” in the Best Song category. It’s about figuring out what you want to say, be, and remember in order to be swimming in the ancient light. If you like harmony, you’ll love this track on which Jarosz takes the lead. I’ve long been enamored with O’Donovan’s calming voice with just a touch of huskiness. She’s the lead vocalist on the title song “Wildand Blue and Clear” but again it’s the harmonies that linger. This one is of formative childhood memories. There are some serious bluegrass licks on fiddle (Watkins) and mandolin (Jarosz) that shape another O’Donovan vocal. I sometimes think that Hawkins’ lead vocals are too strident, as on “Standing on the Fault Line,” but I love her fiddling and the way she orchestrates her partners like an old-time preacher exhorting the congregation. Check out “Mother Eagle (Sing Alive”) and you’ll understand how the quiet power of I’m With Her makes everything seem like a call to meeting.
John Gorka has graduated to being a grizzled vet of the American folk music circuit. His latest record, unentitled, is one of the most optimistic he’s ever made. It opens with “My Favorite Place,” whose reveal is in the middle of a song. It’s a sunny, memorable piece, as light as a spring breeze. Speaking of spring, his second selection is “A Light Exists in Spring,” which encapsulates the specialness of how we feel it coming before it arrives and how it settles in slowly. He’s not the first to make that observation, yet we all know what he means when he sings of the link between nature and human nature. “Particle and Wave (Goodness in the World)” is Gorka’s response to the March for Our Lives movement and is destined to be sung at gatherings in need of an uplift. If you are wondering about the title, it’s another song about light, which is made up of particles and waves. And who, but a dry wit like Gorka would write a song about “Richard III,” the last Plantagenet king. Most of Gorka’s songs are short, as he follows in the footsteps of Jack Hardy (1947-2011) who famously wrote at least a song a week. Gorka modified that to one, then two, songs per month. It means he always has a lot of material at his fingertips, which he refines and eventually records an album. I suspect he was thinking of the 2012 discovery of Richard III’s body underneath a Leicester, England, parking lot. You’ll have to ask him next time he’s performing out your way.
The Danish National Vocal Ensemble are 18 singers from the Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR). Americans might recall that once upon a time we had PBS. It was a bit like the DR except that their vocal ensemble has an affinity for singing a cappella songs from the medieval through the classical and romantic periods. O Listen is a 22-track collection. It’s impossible to give you an overall review of 22 tracks, so here is a sampling of the righteous noise they can make. “Vester Camena” is Latin for “Your Muse.” They have a new conductor, Martina Batič, who leads the ensemble through works from Slovenian composer Uroš Krek. His “Three Autumn Songs” suite is powerful if you are a fan of choral music. Try “Autumn Song, No. 1.” The Ensemble also does work with the national symphony, this time from composer Else Marie Pad, who is described as “a modernist musical Rosary.” Lend your ear to “Maria: No. 2, Amare.” Modernist indeed! It's a bit jarring for my taste, but it does have aspects of the sacred and might be your kind of mass.
Kiki Valera comes from a famous musical family in Cuba and has done just about everything a musician can do. He has taught, soloed, played in bands, produced, composed, directed, and has served as a sound engineer. He plays numerous instruments but is an acknowledged master of the cuatro, a mid-sized guitar about the size of the Martin 000 series. In the live clip of “El Cuatro de tula,” he is on your left with a cuatro in his hands. The album Vacilón Santiaguero features Valero in a group filled with blaring brass and hand drums and percussion. Here they play a rumba, “Sobre una Tumba una Rumba.” Other selections include boleros and danceable selections. There’s even a song titled “Marijuana.” Here’s a clip of him with other family members playing “Vida Parrandera” and the street crowd busting out their dancing shoes.
Rob Weir
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