Quebec band recommendations, round 2: La Bottine Souriante!

As I’ve written before, La Bottine Souriante has the distinction of being the first Quebec band I ever saw perform live, and I said a great deal about them on this post over here. Most of what I had to say there still stands, with some notable exceptions.

First and foremost, as of this writing, La Bottine’s discography has become available for digital purchase on both iTunes and Amazon’s MP3 store! So if you’re a US fan of Quebec music like me, your chances of finding a La Bottine album have now improved considerably.

Which of course brings me to the question of what album should you get? The answer to that’s going to depend on what era of La Bottine you want to investigate, since they seem to come in four overall eras to their sound. I tend to break La Bottine down into “Yves Lambert era” and “Eric Beaudry era”, both of which have their massive appeal to me.

Yves’ Lambert’s era is classic La Bottine, and saw the rise of their mighty, mighty horn section. M. Lambert’s era also saw such seriously impressive musicians as André Marchand and Michel Bordeleau being in the lineup. This era is well worth your time, and if you want to sample it, I’d highly recommend La Mistrine as a studio album at the height of the band’s power in that era. Or, En spectacle for a marvelous live performance. Especially the opening “Ouverture” track, which features what’s kind of the canonical La Bottine tune–Sheepskin and Beeswax, one of the ones I’m trying to learn. I LOVE how they fire this one up, with the rumble out of the bass, then layering in the feet and the melody, until at last the horns start punching in with syncopated goddamn glory and oh, it’s wonderful.

The Eric Beaudry era kicked in with the album J’ai jamais tant ri, and at least as of that album, La Bottine also had Pierre-Luc Dupuis singing a lot of the lead, as well as André Brunet’s fiddle firepower and occasional lead singing as well. All three of these boys have gone on to form De Temps Antan, of course–so that particular La Bottine album rather sounds like “De Temps Antan plus a horn section”. This is not a bad thing!

If you want to get an idea of what La Bottine sounded like as of that album, check out this YouTube fan vid. It’s somebody’s almost entire vid of a La Bottine concert, in which you get to see Eric, André, and Pierre-Luc all rocking it the HELL up. There’s a jumbotron. There’s crowdsurfing. It’s AWESOME.

"" (Watch on YouTube)

Now, I tend to prefer classic La Bottine over current, but that said, Eric Beaudry IS right up at the top of the list of Quebec musicians for whom I want pretty much every note they ever recorded (he’s fighting it out with Olivier Demers for the top spot on that list!). As I’ve also mentioned before, any band with a Beaudry in it gets my immediate and undivided attention. M. Beaudry’s vocals are splendid, and he is an amazing bouzouki player. In fact, musically speaking, he is my current favorite bouzouki player, and I do not say this lightly–as anyone who knows I’ve been fangirling Alan Doyle for the last 13 years knows! So his contributions to La Bottine are not to be underestimated in the slightest.

So if you go with Beaudry-era La Bottine, get their most recent release, Appellation D’Origine Contrôlée. I have a full review of this album right over here. I am madly, madly I tell you, in love with “Au rang d’aimer”. I’m trying to learn that one on the guitar. And yes, it’s one of the tracks M. Beaudry sings lead on. You may now show me your lack of surprise faces, Internets.

Also, I’ll add that if you want to track what happened to other members of La Bottine who are no longer in the band, the aforementioned Yves Lambert is still doing music, and he’s got excellent albums available here. Michel Bordeleau and André Marchand are both now in Les Charbonniers de l’Enfer, deploying their massive vocal talent, and they’re also doing double duty as two of the members of Les Mononcles, where they’re doing instruments as well as vocals.

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

Quebec band recommendations, round 2: La Bottine Souriante!

As I’ve written before, La Bottine Souriante has the distinction of being the first Quebec band I ever saw perform live, and I said a great deal about them on this post over here. Most of what I had to say there still stands, with some notable exceptions.

First and foremost, as of this writing, La Bottine’s discography has become available for digital purchase on both iTunes and Amazon’s MP3 store! So if you’re a US fan of Quebec music like me, your chances of finding a La Bottine album have now improved considerably.

Which of course brings me to the question of what album should you get? The answer to that’s going to depend on what era of La Bottine you want to investigate, since they seem to come in four overall eras to their sound. I tend to break La Bottine down into “Yves Lambert era” and “Eric Beaudry era”, both of which have their massive appeal to me.

Yves’ Lambert’s era is classic La Bottine, and saw the rise of their mighty, mighty horn section. M. Lambert’s era also saw such seriously impressive musicians as André Marchand and Michel Bordeleau being in the lineup. This era is well worth your time, and if you want to sample it, I’d highly recommend La Mistrine as a studio album at the height of the band’s power in that era. Or, En spectacle for a marvelous live performance. Especially the opening “Ouverture” track, which features what’s kind of the canonical La Bottine tune–Sheepskin and Beeswax, one of the ones I’m trying to learn. I LOVE how they fire this one up, with the rumble out of the bass, then layering in the feet and the melody, until at last the horns start punching in with syncopated goddamn glory and oh, it’s wonderful.

The Eric Beaudry era kicked in with the album J’ai jamais tant ri, and at least as of that album, La Bottine also had Pierre-Luc Dupuis singing a lot of the lead, as well as André Brunet’s fiddle firepower and occasional lead singing as well. All three of these boys have gone on to form De Temps Antan, of course–so that particular La Bottine album rather sounds like “De Temps Antan plus a horn section”. This is not a bad thing!

If you want to get an idea of what La Bottine sounded like as of that album, check out this YouTube fan vid. It’s somebody’s almost entire vid of a La Bottine concert, in which you get to see Eric, André, and Pierre-Luc all rocking it the HELL up. There’s a jumbotron. There’s crowdsurfing. It’s AWESOME.

"" (Watch on YouTube)

Now, I tend to prefer classic La Bottine over current, but that said, Eric Beaudry IS right up at the top of the list of Quebec musicians for whom I want pretty much every note they ever recorded (he’s fighting it out with Olivier Demers for the top spot on that list!). As I’ve also mentioned before, any band with a Beaudry in it gets my immediate and undivided attention. M. Beaudry’s vocals are splendid, and he is an amazing bouzouki player. In fact, musically speaking, he is my current favorite bouzouki player, and I do not say this lightly–as anyone who knows I’ve been fangirling Alan Doyle for the last 13 years knows! So his contributions to La Bottine are not to be underestimated in the slightest.

So if you go with Beaudry-era La Bottine, get their most recent release, Appellation D’Origine Contrôlée. I have a full review of this album right over here. I am madly, madly I tell you, in love with “Au rang d’aimer”. I’m trying to learn that one on the guitar. And yes, it’s one of the tracks M. Beaudry sings lead on. You may now show me your lack of surprise faces, Internets.

Also, I’ll add that if you want to track what happened to other members of La Bottine who are no longer in the band, the aforementioned Yves Lambert is still doing music, and he’s got excellent albums available here. Michel Bordeleau and André Marchand are both now in Les Charbonniers de l’Enfer, deploying their massive vocal talent, and they’re also doing double duty as two of the members of Les Mononcles, where they’re doing instruments as well as vocals.

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

Quebec band recommendations, round 2: Galant, tu perds ton temps!

Here we have another band who dropped a new album since I put up my original recommendations post about them: Galant, tu perds ton temps!

As with previous posts in this series, pretty much everything I said in the first one for the Galant ladies still holds true–with the notable exception that they do have a shiny new album out, Soyez heureux, which I reviewed here. And now that they do have that new album out, I need to update my “What album should you get?” rec for them–because yes, you should absolutely get this album if you’re interested in checking out this group, just on musical strength alone. (The other two albums are also available to US customers on digital markets, but if you’re going to pick one album, get this one first.)

They’ll be a bit more challenging to follow for newbies at French like myself, since so far I haven’t been able to confirm whether they have publicly available lyrics–I’ve only been able to find lyrics to one of their songs so far, and they don’t have any posted on their website. But if you don’t consider that a drawback, then absolutely, give these ladies your listening attention. As I said in the album review post, I adore the complexity and precision of their vocals. And they all have distinct and lovely voices as well, which blend beautifully in those many layers of harmony.

As you can see here, courtesy of bordurat on YouTube (source of MANY excellent Quebec music vids), you can see the group performing the title track off the new album:

"" (Watch on YouTube)

Though I’ll link to this one again as well, “Les promesses du galant”, just because it IS one of my favorites off the album before:

"" (Watch on YouTube)

Find the Galant ladies on their official site, as well as on Facebook and Twitter. Go check ‘em out!

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

Quebec band recommendations, round 2: Galant, tu perds ton temps!

Here we have another band who dropped a new album since I put up my original recommendations post about them: Galant, tu perds ton temps!

As with previous posts in this series, pretty much everything I said in the first one for the Galant ladies still holds true–with the notable exception that they do have a shiny new album out, Soyez heureux, which I reviewed here. And now that they do have that new album out, I need to update my “What album should you get?” rec for them–because yes, you should absolutely get this album if you’re interested in checking out this group, just on musical strength alone. (The other two albums are also available to US customers on digital markets, but if you’re going to pick one album, get this one first.)

They’ll be a bit more challenging to follow for newbies at French like myself, since so far I haven’t been able to confirm whether they have publicly available lyrics–I’ve only been able to find lyrics to one of their songs so far, and they don’t have any posted on their website. But if you don’t consider that a drawback, then absolutely, give these ladies your listening attention. As I said in the album review post, I adore the complexity and precision of their vocals. And they all have distinct and lovely voices as well, which blend beautifully in those many layers of harmony.

As you can see here, courtesy of bordurat on YouTube (source of MANY excellent Quebec music vids), you can see the group performing the title track off the new album:

"" (Watch on YouTube)

Though I’ll link to this one again as well, “Les promesses du galant”, just because it IS one of my favorites off the album before:

"" (Watch on YouTube)

Find the Galant ladies on their official site, as well as on Facebook and Twitter. Go check ‘em out!

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

Quebec band recommendations, round 2: Les Charbonniers de l’Enfer!

I said it before and I’ll say it again: goddamn, the gentlemen of Les Charbonniers de l’Enfer can SING. When it comes to hardcore fangirling, okay yeah, I’m flying my fangirl flag VERY high for Genticorum, De Temps Antan, and especially Le Vent du Nord… but musically speaking, the Charbonniers are right up there fighting it out with the younger boys for whose albums I play the most.

If you want to check out Quebec trad, you cannot go wrong with anything these gentlemen have recorded, but my earlier recommendation stands: get their live album. And in particular, get it in physical form if you can, because En personne comes with an awesome concert DVD. Mind you, okay yeah, the concert’s in Quebec, so all their between-song banter is of course in French. Yes, that’s going to be challenging for French newbies like myself. I don’t care. Get the DVD anyway just for the sheer fun of watching the Charbonniers perform. Having actually had the pleasure of seeing them live myself now (merci beaucoup, Memoire et Racines!), I’m here to tell you: they’re huge fun.

(And I’m considering it an eventual master class of practicing my French ear to eventually figure out what the hell the band is saying to each other in that concert, anyway. They’re clearly being hysterical, given how the audience is cracking up. There’s an entire lengthy sequence towards the end of “Everybody’s going to give Normand Miron a stern talking-to” banter in particular that’s fun to watch just for everybody’s expressions! And I will figure this out, oh my yes.)

And the other fun thing about the DVD is actually a bonus feature that comes on it–a featurette in which the Charbonniers went down to New Orleans for a performance down there, and they spent a lot of time just geeking out with folks of Cajun ancestry down there, about shared musical traditions and how much French the younger folks they ran into know and such. It’s a lovely little thing to watch.

Here’s a recent live vid of the Charbonniers (circa last year), so you can get a real nice idea of what they sound like from this:

"" (Watch on YouTube)

Now, if you actually do want a studio album, I’d say either go with Wô (which has strong studio versions of most of the stuff on the live album), or with À la grâce de Dieu, which has several excellent tracks on it–and in particular, “J’aime bien mieux ma mie et sa chemise”. On which Michel Bordeleau sings lead and y’all know how I swoon for the harmony? HOLY CRAP YOU GUYS the harmony on those choruses. There’s harmony there that rivals “River Driver” and “General Taylor” and “Le retour du fils soldat” for killing Anna DED.

ALSO: it’s well worth mentioning that since pretty much everybody in this band is a veteran of the genre, you can find them all over the place on other albums. Michel Bordeleau, André Marchand, and Normand Miron all do double duty in the group Les Mononcles as well. Michel Bordeleau and André Marchand are of course both former members of La Bottine Souriante, so you can hear them both on earlier La Bottine albums. And André and Normand also have excellent albums with fiddler Lisa Ornstein, which are well worth your attention. And Normand also has some work he’s done with Bernard Simard and I DO love me some Bernard Simard vocals too.

So yeah, if you start looking around the genre at all, you’ll run into these names a LOT. Absolutely justifiably, because they are consummate musicians. Especially André Marchand, who as near as I can tell appears to be the Nick Fury of Quebecois Trad, in how he’s working with a lot of younger musicians and passing down his know-how.

TL;DR summary: Jesus hopping Christ on a pogo stick the Charbonniers can sing, and you should give them All the Monies. Preferably enough to get them to come west for shows so I can see them perform more often!

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

Quebec band recommendations, round 2: Les Charbonniers de l’Enfer!

I said it before and I’ll say it again: goddamn, the gentlemen of Les Charbonniers de l’Enfer can SING. When it comes to hardcore fangirling, okay yeah, I’m flying my fangirl flag VERY high for Genticorum, De Temps Antan, and especially Le Vent du Nord… but musically speaking, the Charbonniers are right up there fighting it out with the younger boys for whose albums I play the most.

If you want to check out Quebec trad, you cannot go wrong with anything these gentlemen have recorded, but my earlier recommendation stands: get their live album. And in particular, get it in physical form if you can, because En personne comes with an awesome concert DVD. Mind you, okay yeah, the concert’s in Quebec, so all their between-song banter is of course in French. Yes, that’s going to be challenging for French newbies like myself. I don’t care. Get the DVD anyway just for the sheer fun of watching the Charbonniers perform. Having actually had the pleasure of seeing them live myself now (merci beaucoup, Memoire et Racines!), I’m here to tell you: they’re huge fun.

(And I’m considering it an eventual master class of practicing my French ear to eventually figure out what the hell the band is saying to each other in that concert, anyway. They’re clearly being hysterical, given how the audience is cracking up. There’s an entire lengthy sequence towards the end of “Everybody’s going to give Normand Miron a stern talking-to” banter in particular that’s fun to watch just for everybody’s expressions! And I will figure this out, oh my yes.)

And the other fun thing about the DVD is actually a bonus feature that comes on it–a featurette in which the Charbonniers went down to New Orleans for a performance down there, and they spent a lot of time just geeking out with folks of Cajun ancestry down there, about shared musical traditions and how much French the younger folks they ran into know and such. It’s a lovely little thing to watch.

Here’s a recent live vid of the Charbonniers (circa last year), so you can get a real nice idea of what they sound like from this:

"" (Watch on YouTube)

Now, if you actually do want a studio album, I’d say either go with Wô (which has strong studio versions of most of the stuff on the live album), or with À la grâce de Dieu, which has several excellent tracks on it–and in particular, “J’aime bien mieux ma mie et sa chemise”. On which Michel Bordeleau sings lead and y’all know how I swoon for the harmony? HOLY CRAP YOU GUYS the harmony on those choruses. There’s harmony there that rivals “River Driver” and “General Taylor” and “Le retour du fils soldat” for killing Anna DED.

ALSO: it’s well worth mentioning that since pretty much everybody in this band is a veteran of the genre, you can find them all over the place on other albums. Michel Bordeleau, André Marchand, and Normand Miron all do double duty in the group Les Mononcles as well. Michel Bordeleau and André Marchand are of course both former members of La Bottine Souriante, so you can hear them both on earlier La Bottine albums. And André and Normand also have excellent albums with fiddler Lisa Ornstein, which are well worth your attention. And Normand also has some work he’s done with Bernard Simard and I DO love me some Bernard Simard vocals too.

So yeah, if you start looking around the genre at all, you’ll run into these names a LOT. Absolutely justifiably, because they are consummate musicians. Especially André Marchand, who as near as I can tell appears to be the Nick Fury of Quebecois Trad, in how he’s working with a lot of younger musicians and passing down his know-how.

TL;DR summary: Jesus hopping Christ on a pogo stick the Charbonniers can sing, and you should give them All the Monies. Preferably enough to get them to come west for shows so I can see them perform more often!

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

Quebec band recommendations, round 2: Genticorum!

And now we come to the one band of my top seven about whom I had not previously done a recommendations post, an oversight I shall now be correcting with great pleasure. Because, O Internets, it’s now time for me to enthuse about Genticorum!

You’ve seen me post about these boys already, how I got a flute lesson from Alexandre and then got to see them perform live and then got to go to a house party they were at. You’ve seen me review their new live album. And if you’ve been reading my various tunes posts, you know I’ve got several Genticorum instrumentals queued up on the list of Stuff I Want to Learn How to Play.

Because yeah, I love me some fiddle players and all, but Genticorum? They’ve got the flute player. The one who makes the noises I can actually best try to make myself. The one who’s personally taught me tunes. They’ve also got the guitar player who contributed to my Kickstarter! These things are Important and means I can attest that not only are these guys all great musicians, they’re great people as well and you should buy every one of their albums.

Wait, you want me to get specific? Okaaaaaaay fine. As you might guess from my review link I adore the new live album and do heartily recommend it, if nothing else for the KILL ANNA DED WITH HARMONY wonderfulness that is “La rouillette”, which is not currently available on any of the studio albums they’ve put out. But if you want to go studio, go Nagez Rameurs. Partly because not all of Genticorum’s discography is easily available to US customers–only the last three albums are available for MP3 purchase on iTunes and Amazon. But partly also because Nagez Rameurs has some assistance in the credits from none other than Le Vent du Nord’s Olivier Demers, and if you’ve been paying attention to my blog for more than five minutes running, you know that particular gentleman has already won from me the title of Best Fiddle Player Ever. So I have to endorse purchase of anything he had any involvement in whatsoever. (My musical favoritism, let me show you it!)

ETA: All this said, I listened to La bibournoise on the way home tonight and there’s a lot of strong stuff on that album, too. So if you like Nagez rameurs, by all means, get this one too! My preference for Nagez rameurs is only in degrees of awesome–because trust me, both these albums are highly enjoyable.

Favorite Genticorum tracks, off the top of my head:

“La rouilette”: As previously mentioned, for KILL ANNA DED WITH HARMONY wonderfulness. Note: the Genticorum boys skew higher on their ranges, so they’ve got tight, sweet harmony rather than thunder-rumbling low harmony, but that’s absolutely okay as far as I’m concerned

“La chasse”: Big lively number on the live album, also has a strong studio version on their first album, Le Galarneau (but that one’s hard to find, so if you want to hear this song, get the live album)

“Genticorum”: Self-titled song, also from Le Galarneau, but which has some great harmony and call and response in it

“Turlutte Hirsute”: On Nagez Rameurs, fun juxtaposition of turluttes and instrumentals

“Valse de Poeles”: Also on Nagez Rameurs, a slower instrumental. I can play this one! The backstory on this one in concert is fun, as the boys tell the story of how this one was written when they had to move some stoves

“Violon Guerisseur”: Yet again, on Nagez Rameurs, an excellent instrumental set

And here, have some videos so you can actually see and hear these boys in action! The La rouilette goodness (can’t embed this one, so I’m linking to it)! And here, here’s “Brandy culotte”, which appears on the album La Bibournoise:

"" (Watch on YouTube)

ETA: This just in–here’s another video, straight from Genticorum themselves! This is the first of three from the same concert that Enregistré Live is from, the tune “La Finno Gaspésienne”, which is definitely one of my repeat tracks from the album.

"" (Watch on YouTube)

Lastly, I must give a shoutout to Alexandre’s other musical project, which is the band Mélisande, led by his wife, and who I’ve also had the pleasure of seeing perform. Mélisande is a splendid singer and she and Alexandre are assembling what promises to be a good strong band on the new album they’re putting together. They’ve got a bit more contemporary feel going on with their music, so do consider checking them out too!

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

Quebec band recommendations, round 2: Genticorum!

And now we come to the one band of my top seven about whom I had not previously done a recommendations post, an oversight I shall now be correcting with great pleasure. Because, O Internets, it’s now time for me to enthuse about Genticorum!

You’ve seen me post about these boys already, how I got a flute lesson from Alexandre and then got to see them perform live and then got to go to a house party they were at. You’ve seen me review their new live album. And if you’ve been reading my various tunes posts, you know I’ve got several Genticorum instrumentals queued up on the list of Stuff I Want to Learn How to Play.

Because yeah, I love me some fiddle players and all, but Genticorum? They’ve got the flute player. The one who makes the noises I can actually best try to make myself. The one who’s personally taught me tunes. They’ve also got the guitar player who contributed to my Kickstarter! These things are Important and means I can attest that not only are these guys all great musicians, they’re great people as well and you should buy every one of their albums.

Wait, you want me to get specific? Okaaaaaaay fine. As you might guess from my review link I adore the new live album and do heartily recommend it, if nothing else for the KILL ANNA DED WITH HARMONY wonderfulness that is “La rouillette”, which is not currently available on any of the studio albums they’ve put out. But if you want to go studio, go Nagez Rameurs. Partly because not all of Genticorum’s discography is easily available to US customers–only the last three albums are available for MP3 purchase on iTunes and Amazon. But partly also because Nagez Rameurs has some assistance in the credits from none other than Le Vent du Nord’s Olivier Demers, and if you’ve been paying attention to my blog for more than five minutes running, you know that particular gentleman has already won from me the title of Best Fiddle Player Ever. So I have to endorse purchase of anything he had any involvement in whatsoever. (My musical favoritism, let me show you it!)

ETA: All this said, I listened to La bibournoise on the way home tonight and there’s a lot of strong stuff on that album, too. So if you like Nagez rameurs, by all means, get this one too! My preference for Nagez rameurs is only in degrees of awesome–because trust me, both these albums are highly enjoyable.

Favorite Genticorum tracks, off the top of my head:

“La rouilette”: As previously mentioned, for KILL ANNA DED WITH HARMONY wonderfulness. Note: the Genticorum boys skew higher on their ranges, so they’ve got tight, sweet harmony rather than thunder-rumbling low harmony, but that’s absolutely okay as far as I’m concerned

“La chasse”: Big lively number on the live album, also has a strong studio version on their first album, Le Galarneau (but that one’s hard to find, so if you want to hear this song, get the live album)

“Genticorum”: Self-titled song, also from Le Galarneau, but which has some great harmony and call and response in it

“Turlutte Hirsute”: On Nagez Rameurs, fun juxtaposition of turluttes and instrumentals

“Valse de Poeles”: Also on Nagez Rameurs, a slower instrumental. I can play this one! The backstory on this one in concert is fun, as the boys tell the story of how this one was written when they had to move some stoves

“Violon Guerisseur”: Yet again, on Nagez Rameurs, an excellent instrumental set

And here, have some videos so you can actually see and hear these boys in action! The La rouilette goodness (can’t embed this one, so I’m linking to it)! And here, here’s “Brandy culotte”, which appears on the album La Bibournoise:

"De temps antan La turlutte du rotoculteur .mov" (Watch on YouTube)

ETA: This just in–here’s another video, straight from Genticorum themselves! This is the first of three from the same concert that Enregistré Live is from, the tune “La Finno Gaspésienne”, which is definitely one of my repeat tracks from the album.

"" (Watch on YouTube)

Lastly, I must give a shoutout to Alexandre’s other musical project, which is the band Mélisande, led by his wife, and who I’ve also had the pleasure of seeing perform. Mélisande is a splendid singer and she and Alexandre are assembling what promises to be a good strong band on the new album they’re putting together. They’ve got a bit more contemporary feel going on with their music, so do consider checking them out too!

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.