Sunday at Bob's #31 - Mea Culpa

Hello everyone and welcome back for yet another sunday at Bob's. First of all I must begin by saying officially that I am not a receptionist anymore. For what I believe it adds to the blog's atmosphere I will continue to sign "the receptionist" and keep the name "Bob's" but it has to be clear that this is all fictional from now on. Except the check out, everyone must do the check out before 10h30. Second of all I owe you guys an apology. Two weeks ago I went on about how I was questioning my reticence towards music "from where was brought up" and explained I investigated and found some interesting things. I basically advertised a Swiss playlist. A friend expressed his disapointement when listening to it all hyped up to the idea of discovering music from this peculiar country. Only to realise there was none. There are two things I have to say for my defense. One is that eventhough I grew up in Switzerland, it was always walking distance from France. Moreover most of the TV channels, movies and songs we get over there are French (appart from the USA). So when I thought I would investigate music "from where I was brought up" it was naturally that I digged into French folk songs. I don't believe country borders have much to do with culture. The second thing I have to say is that I get it, and here is some music from Switzerland.

If we would attempt to redraw the map of the region considering only the cultural criteria (impossible task if there is one) Switzerland would most likely be overlapped by three or four "countries". Commonly what comes to mind when we think of Swiss music is the yodel, the alphorn, the ländler or the schlager. These are shared with Austria and Bavaria. We will begin with an beautiful example of yodel by Doris Muller.

One thing that is not commonly known on the other side is the fourth language spoken. Romansh is the language of south east Switzerland. It originates from the latin spoken in the Roman empire, brought to the region by soldiers, merchants, and officials following the conquest of the modern-day Grisons area by the Romans in 15 BC. I have never heard this language being spoken in real life. Its roots in latin gives it a sweet Fabrizio de André vibe when sung but we will come to that later. I must say Men Steiner and Aita Biert are probably the happiest musical discovery I made recently. It is however counter balanced by the immense difficulty to find more from these beautiful people.

We need another rumantsch song I reckon, Corin Curschellas does us the honor.

Corin Curschellas' actual mother tongue is the Swiss German dialect. Although from her father she learnt to speak near-perfect Surselvan,[5] she does not herself write any Graubünden Romansh songs. However, she does sing the lyrics and songs of Romansh writers in full Romansh Idiom, including Graubünden Rumansh. (source)

We go on with a very beautiful song by the immortal Fabrizio de André. I used to think of him as the Italian George Brassens but I think it would be underestimating his life work. The more I dive into his music the more diverse it gets.

Then we have a great great great song from a 1963 compilation called Folklore Dances of Bulgaria, compiled and edited by Dennis Boxell.

Dennis C. Boxell was born in 1940 and grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was first introduced to the music and dance of the South Slavs at the age of fifteen. He learned the dances of the Croatian and Serbian immigrants with the encouragement of Lillian Kurkowsky of the St. Paul International Institute. While in Minneapolis, Dennis met Dick Crum, noted Balkan folklore researcher, who was then the choreographer of the Duquesne University Tamburitzans, and who inspired Dennis to begin to develop a professional interest in Balkan dance. His first love was Balkan dance, and after being exposed to it, he lived in Yugoslav communities in and around St. Paul, Minnesota, absorbing their songs and dances and learning about their foods and folklore. (source)

Then comes another dance, this time from the beautiful Greek island of Ikaria, very close to Turkey, it is famous for the amount of panayiria organized there. It is named after Icarus who fell in the sea nearby after his experiment failed. This allows me to link you to a video of a panayiri were is danced the ikariotiko, traditional dance of the island, extremely difficult to master yet so simple and elegant in appearance. In the region there is a sort of a bagpipe called tsabouna that is very beautiful to hear. Your can hear it being played from far away in the island and there is one song in particular that I love and have been searching for a good recorded version for years. It is called ampelokoutsoura and if I find it I will show it to you.

Without transition we jump to one of my favourite rap songs, by Michelle & Noel Keserwany from Lebanon. I am not gonna try to describe their song, they do it better but I must ecourage you vividly to have a look at the beautiful clip they shot for it.

Have you ever felt when going to Downtown Beirut that you're at the sidelines of some ''power'' contest where ''la creme de la creme'' of the population is found parading with their newest cars, trendiest clothes, tallest cigars... And that when you dare enter their perfect little world at the risk of being stared to death, you sense that you're being deprived of enjoying the beauty of the city?? Well who said that it's illegal to be less fortunate and go to DT? Better yet, who said it's against the law to go there riding a camel?!?! A group of friends and us tried to see the outcome of that theory by actually entering the capital city on camels! And that was the reaction! Enjoy!!!! (source)

After that comes the very cool Djazia Satour who, amongst other things, used to be in the choir of Gnawa Diffusion who we heard here before. She is followed by a song from a really interesting compilation called Moroccan Folk Music.

Then we have a magnificent song by the Palestinian band Wall3at. A friend from Palestine translated it to me as follows: There are people who take life seriously, there are people who sell it for money, there are people who don't know anyone and only God takes care of, there are half people, there are three quarter people, but full people you won't ever buy.

We go back to Switzerland with one of the coolest instruments ever. The Talerschwingen is from the Appenzell region and consists of a culinary instrument diverted from its function. A ceramic plate where people used to put the milk, and a coin. The idea is to make the coin roll perpetualy in the plate by moving it in circles, here is a demonstration. They say it is the only instrument that is exclusively from Switzerland (I have no way to back up that claim) and they say only one person still makes the ceramic plates and he is called Hans Schwendener. It is apparently exhausting to make becaue they are quite heavy and require fast execution. It seems the yodel singers from Appenzell wear a spoon shaped earring (Schüefli) to refer to the original use of the instrument, and they look marvelous. After double checking it seems that the earring is part of the traditional outfit, worn by everyone. It is actually a snake shaped earring, to which is added a spoon for celebrations. They sing with their hands in their pockets which simply increases the coolness of the whole thing.

We pursue with a beautiful piece of alphorn by the Hornroh Modern Alphorn Quartet.

With two songs we pay tribute to the legend Christophe who passed away recently (may he rest in peace) and we close with a joke of some sort. At the beggining of this post I mentioned how culturally influenced by France the extreme south west of Switzerland is, well I think Patrick Juvet is a good example of what I mean by that. Rather groovy nonetheless.

That's it for today I hope you had fun, I see you in two weeks!

Check out time is now a concept, but it should be done at 10h30 no excuse.

The receptionist

Playlist:

1. Doris Muller - Bim Doris De Heime
2. Men Steiner and Aita Biert - Il Silip e la Furmia
3. Corin Curschellas - Randulin
4. Fabrizio De André - Amore che vieni amore che vai
5. Various - Право тракийско
6. Νίκος Οικονομίδης - Ικαριώτικος (Παλαιός)
7. Michelle & Noel Keserwany - 3al Jamal bi wasat Beirut
8. Djazia Satour - Loun Liyam
9. Various - Touicha & Jabir
10. فرقة ولعت - في ناس وناس
11. Innerrhoder Trachtechörli - Ruggusseli mit Talerschwinge
12. Hornroh Modern Alphorn Quartet - Ueberm Nebel
13. Christophe - Un tour d'Harley avec Lucie/Histoire de vous plaire
14. Patrick Juvet - Où sont les femmes?

Sunday at Bob's #30 - Collective Unconscious

Hello and welcome back for another Sunday at Bob's!

First of all I would like to apologize for the last post that I skipped despite the fact that I had my playlist prepared and my text in mind. A few months back I was discussing this blog with a couple of friends and one of them asked me how come I would research and write about music from all around the world but not feature songs from the place I grew up in. I replied, as a lot of people do, that I am not very fond of the traditional music played there. I reckon this happened even before I posted the long playlist dedicated to Moroccan music (Sunday at Bob's #13 - Ila Mchit), however we were talking about Switzerland. Anyway, once this remark was planted in my head it grew over the past months and I decided to do something about it. After all, if I can find joy and meaning in music regardless of its provenance I should be able to reconcile myself with music brought up where I was brought up. This playlist is not exclusively composed of French folk music, but it was somehow provoked by that discussion about it.
Before we start I also want to add that when I was about to upload on Mixcloud, minutes ago, a voice appeared and told me the website was now using adds. I know for a fact at least one of our listeners doesn't listen to the playlists fully because Mixcloud limits the amount of time you can pause it, or jumps within the playlist. So we are now on Soundcloud, let's see how it goes.

I spent the last months investigating French folk music, and it lead me to find a lot of field recordings from various regions. Ethnologists would travel the countryside looking for gems like a comb gathering lice accross a hairy skull (this is a very questionable comparison but it's the first time I write since a month so please be merciful). In many instances, they would hear about an old person with a wide repertoir in their head, who would be famous in the region and requested to sing at village parties. They would find that person, put a microphone in front of them and let them sing, leading to very beautiful recordings where can be heard regional languages casually spoken in between old songs. I guess if the album as we know it is a format of recorded music, these field recordings are another one clearly distinguished but as much, if not more, exciting. As a research process, it ressembles a mirrored version of the process described in the beautiful series of documentaries American Epic, which I recommend.

So I chose to start this playlist with an example of such recording. It is a perfect illustration to be put next to the statement made above (about not enjoying traditional music from my own surroundings). En revenant de noces is an other name for a song most French speaking people could sing you if requested, at least the first verses: A la claire fontaine. While the version we all know is commonly considered an almost dull, childish song heard in primary schools' playgrounds, many other versions exist (over 500) and here is one remarkable example. There is a lot to say about it and I probably will eventually but I have to get on with this post so here are two intriguing facts about it: First, while being viewed as a children song, it has an adult theme. And while being written as if sung by a woman, the huge majority of interpretations I found were sung by men.

We go on with a very interesting quintet from Brittany. Hamon Martin Quintet is mixing traditional music, jazz and more to achieve truly exciting music in my opinion. Les vies que l'on mène is really one of the most beautiful songs I came accross lately. It is very well written and overall inspiring. It is followed by another major discovery from Bretagne, the duo composed of singer Yann-Fañch Kemener and pianist Didier Squiban. This allows me to give a special shout out to Coop Breizh who are releasing such beautiful albums, if you are interested in music from Brittany go have a look.

Then we have Dominique & Jean-Paul Carton and their version of Dans les prisons de Nantes, a song dating back from the XVIIe century. It describes the love story between a prisoner and the daughter of his gaoler, who helps him escape. It is believed to have been inspired by the escape of Jean François Paul de Gondi, cardinal de Retz in 1654.

We then cross the English Channel for a two songs parenthesis.

Siúil a Rún is a traditional Irish song, sung from the point of view of a woman lamenting a lover who has embarked on a military career, and indicating her willingness to support him. The song has English language verses and an Irish language chorus, a style known as macaronic. (source)

It is followed by a song we heard here before, this time sung by the immense countertenor Alfred Deller: Black is the colour of my true love's hair.

We cross the sea one more time, back to Brittany to meet the three sisters Les Soeurs Goadec. It is when I hear such music that I think can be linked with other great musicians such as Les Filles de Illighadad who we talked about here a few months ago, that I think of Carl Jung's idea of a collective unconscious. Initially I wanted to write this whole text from that angle but I think it would need more time and space, maybe another time, maybe another way.

I had a discussion recently about "morning music". I think most people, including yours truly, associate different musics to different parts of the day, to different seasons, to different moods as well. I find Louis Armstrong, for instance, to be a very winter-ish musician. Not because his music sounds like winter, or cold, but rather because it is so warm it acts as a fire to warm your hands in. Well, most likely because in my family the morning tradition is to play berber traditional music while dipping bread in a plate of olive oil and honey, Mohammed Rouicha is my "morning music".

We then have the great John Berberian and his uplifting virtuosity on the oud, a masterpiece from Macedonia, another from Albania (to be put in parallel with the music from Epirus we talked about a lot on this blog) and a beautiful closing of this week's playlist by Jean Sablon and his moonlit village.

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed.

The check out time used to be 10h30, no one knows what will happen to it but it shall be remembered.

The receptionist

Playlist:

1. Centre Occitan des musiques et danses traditionnelles - En revenant de noces
2. Hamon Martin Quintet - Les vies que l'on mène
3. Didier Squiban, Yann Fanch Kemener - Hanter dro duhont'ar ar mane/Evnig bihan
4. Dominique & Jean-Paul Carton - Le prisonnier de Nantes - Braden's Reel
5. Noirin Ni Riain, Owen & Moley Ó Súilleabháin - Siúil a Rún
6. Alfred Deller, Desmond Dupre - Black is the colour of my true love's hair
7. Les Soeurs Goadec - Margodig
8. Mohamed Rouicha - Khamsa (1)
9. John Berberian And The Rock East Ensemble - The Oud & The Fuzz (4/4)
10. Ljuben Dimkaroski - Ne pribiraj mila majko strojnici (Mother, Don't Look for a Suitor) (arr. L. Dinkaroski)
11. Laver Bariu - Medley (: Kaba Laver Bariu No 2/Pogonishtë Përmetare)
12. Jean Sablon - Mon village au clair de lune