annathepiper | Entries tagged with album reviews

Here’s another thing I’m going to do a whole separate post about from this week’s Vancouver goodness: while I was up there, I made a very specific point of ducking into the HMV in downtown Vancouver, my current only source for Quebecois music when I go up there. And much to my pleasure, they had the one remaining Le Vent du Nord album I didn’t have yet: Symphonique, which is Le Vent du Nord pretty much doing a full concert backed up by the Quebec Symphony Orchestra! As both a newly minted LVN fangirl and a piccolo player who still has very fond memories of her high school days in concert band and wind ensemble, it’s my beholden duty to do a proper review post of this album.

I have only minor quibbles with it, and they mostly have to do with the mixing of the LVN instruments vs. those of the orchestra behind them. As a casual listener it’s not clear to me what the musical intent here is: whether LVN should be seamlessly blending with the orchestra, or whether you should still be able to distinguish, oh, say, Olivier Demers’ violin vs. the violin section in the orchestra. It’s easier with Nicolas Boulerice on the hurdy gurdy, since the sound is so distinctive. But I frequently lost M. Demers’ violin against the rest of them, as well as his footwork. In some places as well, such as in “Rosette”, the boys’ vocals were a bit overwhelmed by the orchestra.

And I’ll say right out that although I adore “Cre-mardi”, and while the orchestra did perfectly decent punctuation to the rhythm of the song, it just didn’t sound nearly as awesome as when it’s done as a proper crowd-rousing foot-stomper–like in this video right over here! That song right there is very specifically why I want to see LVN live, since it’s so far their liveliest, audience-participation-iest song, and I am quite prepared to hey-up-a-diddle-um-day-da right back at ‘em. ;)

But really, these are fairly minor quibbles. On several of these tracks, the orchestra actually blends quite beautifully with the band. The instrumentals in particular are awesome: “L’heure bleue”, and “Petit reve III”. On those tracks, they achieve the exact right balance between the band’s instruments and the orchestra’s. “Elise” and “Les amants du Saint-Laurent” work well as examples of tracks where the orchestra enhances the overall flavor of the song, and where they don’t overwhelm the band’s vocals.

Also, I have to give the album mad props just for being the only current recorded version of Simon Beaudry singing “Vive l’amour”, since the studio version of this song was done before he joined the band. And on LVN’s previous live album, Mesdames et messieurs, they brought back the original guy who sang lead on that track for that performance!

And while we’re on the topic of M. Beaudry, his other major song on this album is “Lanlaire”, which as y’all know I’m already strongly partial to. So I made a point of listening more closer to this song than several of the others–and I do quite like the drum strikes in the background on the second verse. Well done back there, timpani player! And since I’m trying to commit M. Demers’ nameless bridge/outro bit to memory, I also noted that the orchestra did not fully accompany him on those parts, but they did echo him on several passages nicely. There’s some nice swooping from the strings back there, too.

Someone–either M. Demers or else a soloist from the violin section, it’s not clear to me which since it’s not called out in the liner notes, and I don’t know the original studio version well enough to say for certain yet–has a nice bit in the middle of the second to the last track: “Octobre 1837″. In the bridge in the middle, the performer does some tricky-sounding descending syncopation with his fiddle on top of the rest of the instruments, and gets some well-deserved applause right in the middle of the song after that. Well done there, whoever you were!

M. Boulerice fares the best out of the band in the overall mix, I think. His voice is more powerful than M. Beaudry’s, so he stands out better against the orchestra–and for that matter, so does his hurdy gurdy. (Also: as a former symphonic band student, I have to just giggle my head off at the mental image of the first chair of the hurdy gurdy section. But really, do you need more than one? XD )

Checking the liner notes on the album, I see that Airat Ichmouratov was apparently doing the conducting of the orchestra, and I see a total of 23 violin players, 8 viola players, 8 cellists, 5 double basses, two flutes (woo! flute section represent! And one of them’s a piccolo player! \0/ ), two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, two trombones, one low trombone, one tuba, one timpani, two people on general percussion, and one harpist. So that’s 67 people, a pretty good-sized orchestra! I am now definitely curious about whether they’ve got some recordings of their own, and I may need to seek them out.

All in all I’m very pleased to have found a copy of this album and I’d definitely recommend it to anyone interested in the band. In several ways I actually like this performance better than the other live album, just because the orchestral angle is of more musical interest to me–though if LVN ever do a rowdier live album, I’ll be much more interested in that!

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

Just finished listening to Le sort des amoureux, the album by Éric and Simon Beaudry! This was fun. Lower-key than much of the Quebecois music I have now, but fun nonetheless.

Éric and Simon trade off singing lead vocals on the various tracks, and I’m beginning to see that while they have very similar voices, I can in fact tell which one is singing when, even without consulting the liner notes. I’ve come to know Simon’s voice well of course from the tracks he sings lead on for Le Vent du Nord, even though there are only a few of those, so that’s helpful! I prefer Simon’s voice; it’s got a bit of a darker, richer flavor to it. But that said, Éric sings very well too. (This, I note, is pretty much what I can say about both of their singing voices when I don’t speak French–it means I punt back to thinking about the character of the voices doing the singing, instead of the actual words. Which is actually kind of fun in its own right.)

Note also: the title track, “Le sort des amoureux” (“The fate of love”, according to Google Translate), has the Beaudry boys singing together a capella. NICE. They sound rather haunting together, and while they don’t sing with the force of the lead singers in their other bands (Nicolas Boulerice, I am looking at you, monsieur), they blend very, very well.

Meanwhile, though, I also have to give the album high marks for significant levels of bouzouki! All video evidence I’ve been able to find to date suggests that Éric may actually have more bouzouki awesome in his musical arsenal than Simon does–but this is only because I’m seeing vids of Éric playing bouzouki as a lead instrument, including doing some really nice fingerwork, vs. Simon playing bouzouki as a rhythm instrument. The liner notes on this album, anyway, are crediting the zouk specifically to Éric. And that’s all good. I REALLY like the zouk on these tracks; it stands out very clearly, and gives it a flavor I do not actually get from most other albums I’ve got, Quebecois or otherwise!

There are several guest musicians here too, so it’s not just the Beaudrys. In particular, I’m noticing the name of André Marchand showing up heavily in the credits of the liner notes–who I now know as one of the members of Les Charbonniers de l’Enfer, and a former member of La Bottine Souriante, as I posted about before! (He apparently produced this album for the Beaudrys, and if this is an example of his production prowess, I can only say ‘well done, monsieur!’) The second to last track is all instrumental, and has seven people total playing on it, so the energy kicks up closer to what I hear from oh, say, Le Vent du Nord. High bouzouki there too. :D

The last track in particular is also noteworthy. It’s also a capella, and is in fact sung by an 81-year-old (at the time of recording) lady named Clémence Gagné. If I understand the translation I’m getting off the liner notes correctly, she apparently taught the Beaudrys this song, and they invited her to sing it on the album. Éric sings along with her. Aw. <3

Last but not least: the album artwork's really kind of adorable! It's got this whole Chutes-and-Ladders-like motif on the front of it, only instead of chutes, there are a couple of snakes! And there are some cute little sketches of a guy and his sweetheart, including one charming little one of him holding out a bouquet of flowers to her. I'm glad to have a physical copy of this CD for the artwork alone--but also because lyrics are provided on the liner notes, which is extremely helpful given my lack of French, as it means I can try to translate them.

So yeah. Generally recommended for anybody who likes trad in the general category of "laid back and groovy, with a bit of blues and country twang to it", as well as anyone who likes the sound of French lyrics! If you're in the US and you want the album, CD Baby is your friend. This particular album’s CD-only, but the CD Baby page does have listenable samples, so check it out!

And the Beaudrys’ site for the album lives right over here. You can see the aforementioned adorable artwork on the landing page! (Note that while they have a button for French and a button for English, only the French one actually works. But you can always load the site up in Chrome and have it translate for you on the fly!)

ETA: Spelling of album title corrected! Oops!

ETA #2: framlingem says the title is correctly translated to The Fate of Lovers, which makes better sense, and goes very well with the aforementioned adorable artwork! Thanks, framlingem!

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

RIGHT THEN! spazzkat texted me when I was on my way home this evening to alert me that the desperately awaited Safe Upon the Shore had finally arrived in the mail. It should surprise none of you that I ripped that envelope open as soon as I kicked off my shoes and changed clothes and got some dinner in me! And I slapped the disc into the actual stereo with actual speakers, not just the penny-ante little speakers on my laptop. ‘Cause if I’m going to listen to a shiny new GBS album for the first time, I’m going to listen to it right.

My review, overall? Um. Fair warning that if you didn’t care for Fortune’s Favour, you probably won’t care for this album either. There’s a lot of the same feel to its production and mixing, in that it feels slicker than older GBS albums have done, and the B’ys are experimenting with vocal styles and types of songs they haven’t historically played with. Which is awesome if you’re a band that’s had ten CDs and you need to mix stuff up a bit to keep it fresh–but if you’re a long-time fan who signed on for the tasty, tasty trad, this takes quite a bit of getting used to.

That said, there are so far two confirmed tracks I’ll be coming back to in regular rotation, “Nothing But a Song” and “Safe Upon the Shore”. There are four others that are potential repeat plays. This is about the same for me as Fortune’s Favour, which gave me ultimately only five songs I regularly go back and replay on the Favorites playlist. And both of these are pretty low overall for GBS albums for me. I’ll have to see how my opinion changes as I play through the album a few more times!

Track-by-track reactions behind the cut.

( Read the rest of this entry » )

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

I was pretty much dead sure I was going to want this soundtrack, and I was right. There is a whole lot of lovely violin and cello work all over it, and a bunch of thundering percussion as well--especially in the tracks representing the battle-flavored parts of the movie. Very little woodwinds, though there are whistles here and there, and I don't think I caught any brass at all. So it's a very strings-heavy and percussion-heavy soundtrack, and that totally works for me, since it helps convey Aubrey as a violinist and Maturin as a cellist. :D ( Musical swoonage )

Current Mood: swoony
Current Music: Violins and cellos in my head

I'm going to gush about having a new album from 30 Odd Foot of Grunts now. If you're not interested, under no circumstances should you ( click here... )

Current Mood: impressed
Current Music: Russell Crowe & 30 Odd Foot Of Grunts - Folsom Prison Blues