E Kreiz Ar Mor

Brittany Sings of the Sea.

by Steve Winick.

[From Dirty Linen # 61, December 1995/January 1996]

At one time, the Celts inhabited the broad plains of central Europe, but their destiny lay to the west. Generations of invasion from outside and of voluntary migration moved them across the continent; they now inhabit the islands and peninsulas in the western part of the North Sea. In Celtic culture, the sea is never far away. The westernmost of these Celtic-speaking seafarers are the Bretons, whose homeland in western France is composed of a peninsula and its outlying islands. In both traditional and contemporary Breton music, the sea is a powerful force. Indeed, there is so much seafaring music from Brittany that this article can be only une goutte d'eau dans la mer.

One of the best traditional singers in the Breton language has recently collaborated on an album of songs about life by the banks of the ocean. Enez Eusa [L'oz 02] features the voice of Yann-Fañch Kemener and the piano playing of Didier Squiban. Both are masters of atmospheric music, and the CD is a beautiful, if gloomy, work. Most of the songs are traditional, and all are at least a hundred years old. They tell of the hard lives of the fisher folk and sailors who lived years ago on Brittany's rugged islands. Songs like "Me 'Zo Ganet E Kreiz Ar Mor (I was born in the middle of the sea)" and "Tri Martolod (Three Sailors)" speak of the joys and sorrows of daily life on the coast and aboard ships. Other songs are tragic, like "Plac'hig Eusa (Young Girl of Eusa)":

on a rock by the banks of the sea,
little Korentine wept bitterly,
From the depths of her heart, her prayer
Went up thus to the sky:
'while fighting the English,
my father was drowned in the deep sea....'"

"Gwerz Ker-Iz (The Ballad of the City of Ys)" alludes to the traditional story of Ys, the glittering city that became decadent and was punished by being engulfed by the ocean. All of these songs are sung by Kemener in a sad voice that floats gently on the air as a spar on a peaceful sea. The arrangements are sparse and moody, with understated accompaniments by Squiban's piano. Together, the two have produced a work of rare simplicity and power.

A less gentle brand of sea music is produced by Michel Tonnerre, a hard-boiled singer with a deep, gritty, gravelly voice that will remind Breton music aficionados of Gilles Servat and others of Bob Seger. Until now, Tonnerre's albums have been relatively weak in the area of arrangements; he was mostly a bar act and sounded it. But his new album L'Oiseau Noir [Keltia Musique KMCD 53] transcends the bar scene and puts him into the concert-hall rock category, including good acoustic and electric guitar work, standard bass, drums, and keyboard backing, bluesy harmonica, and an interesting array of percussion instruments. Sometimes, as on "Conaissance de Gosses," the sound strays toward reggae. Other times, it sounds like a Bruce Springsteen tribute. All of it is well-played and maintains a high production standard even for pop music. And what about his songs? They're all in French, and speak about sailing on whalers and clippers. For the most part, they're original compositions of Tonnerre's, but often they borrow phrases from well-known shanties; one translates "All For Me Grog" into French, while another borrows from "Le Captiaine de Saint-Malo," a local French-language shanty. If you speak French, Tonnerre's salty slang will prove a challenge. If not, just listen to his gut-wrenching singing; you'll get the basic drift.

Tonnerre, one of the best-known songwriters working on maritime themes, is frequently covered by other artists who play sea music. Shangaïé, a band that plays both traditional and contemporary sea songs, is an example. Their CD Sans Retour Ni Consignes [Escalibur CD 857] features one of Tonnerre's songs, as well as several others by such famous Breton songwriters as Louis Capart. It also features original songs and traditional sea shanties; the latter are the highlights for me. Instrumentation is mostly a guitar, a double bass and a big piano accordion. Although the traditional material sounds very maritime, the rest is the sort of music that most of us might associate with a 1930's Parisian café or cabaret: leisurely accordion and almost-spoken vocals that come jerkily, in separate phrases. These are neither the best singers nor the best musicians in Brittany, but they do have a certain spirited flair that makes the disc worth hearing for both its traditional and its nostalgic sides.

Martine and Serge Rives are artists who are as well known for their dramatic staging as for their music. Serge is a native of the isle of Groix, from a long line of fishermen, and still a sailor himself. When he met Martine, she was already a successful comedienne, author and director. It was their joint passion for music and her show biz acumen that gave them the dramatic flair that separates them from other groups. Unfortunately, only the music is available on the disc Sur les Ailes du Goëland , but these songs stand alone as good examples of contemporary "Chansons de Marins." Both Rives have powerful voices in which they declaim their lyrics, as if shouting defiantly at the wind. They are accompanied by Serge's basic guitar strumming, plus accordion, banjo, pennywhistle, piano and other instruments. Various sound ideas are explored, from folk to pop, but the voices and the strong writing hold it all together as contemporary music of the sea.

Stone Age is a group that goes far beyond "sea-music." Instead, they could be said to make "element music," filling their sparse lyrics with images of the sea, but also of the earth and the air. These are songs in which stones speak, and unnamed messengers float over deep oceans, in which chivalrous knights vanish into the air and hearts are spurred on by the wind. These magical words are built into an interesting sonic frame of sampled pipe bands, spoken, rap-style vocals, and electric guitars playing an dros as solos. Several of the tunes are listed as traditional; notably a set of spoken words called "Sellet" backed by excellent Irish tin whistle playing. Another couples the chorus of "Drunken Sailor" with a reel played on fiddle and whistle and high-tech drum machine backing. Still a third puts pulsating rhythm machines behind what is apparently an entire pipe band, or at least a sample of one. The sleeve notes, by referring to the musicians only by their pseudonyms (Marc de Poncallec, Terracotta, Lach'ilaouet and Kervador) and by withholding all information as to who plays what, cultivate an air of mystery and mysticism; are these wizards of the sound studio or just regular musicians having a good time with old and new sounds? Do they play everything themselves, or are there guests? I think I detect a Davy Spillane-like quality to the uillean piping at one point. (One thing is certain; they didn't play the pipe band parts all by themselves!) All speculation aside, musically speaking the disc falls somewhere between Alan Stivell's Again and Mouth Music's early albums; it has the same blend of Celtic roots and dance-hall hipness. If those appealed to you as new takes on traditional themes then you'll probably like this. If you saw them as muddying the crystal waters of tradition, you'll want to set course for a distant shore.

So if you're trying to find Breton music relating to the sea, remember: Ce n'est pas la mer à boire!

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