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