Dirty Linen Musica del Norte:
Traditional Music from Spain and Portugal
by Steve Winick

The music most people associate with Spain is Flamenco. But there is also a whole traditional music scene in Spain, quite separate from the Flamenco crowd. Many of Spain's folk groups, even the ones in the center and south of the country, took their early inspiration from the Irish music of the 1970s. This is doubly true of bands from Spain's northern reaches, which still claim some Celtic ancestry. The folk music of northern Spain, and its neighbor, northern Portugal, is a vibrant and fascinating combination of native traditions, borrowings from Celtic music, and re-interpretations of medieval artistry.

Asturies is not one of Spain's best-known provinces, but Asturian ensemble Llan De Cubel is certainly one of Spain's best-known folk groups. Listening to their new CD, Llan de Cubel IV [Fono Astur Fa. CD. 8752 (Spain); Iona IRCD 046 (Scotland)], it's easy to see why. They're melodically compelling, rhythmically intense, and light in tone and texture. Theirs is a delicately balanced sound, but they manage it beautifully. Most of their tunes are carried melodically by fiddle, flute, and/or bagpipes, and backed by acoustic guitar, bouzouki and percussion. The influence and inspiration of Celtic revival music in this mixture is an obvious fact, but these musicians don't dwell on it or let it distract them from presenting their own, Asturian music. This CD contains seven sets of instrumentals, including various dances, festive marches, and mass interludes. Most of the tunes are based on traditional pipe-and-drum music, with the flute, fiddle and harmonic accompaniment added to modernize them. The resulting arrangements are upbeat, bright and bouncy. The disc also contains three songs, contemporary Asturian poems set to traditional music, which actually made me wish for some more vocal pieces. It adds up to a charming package which bears repeated listening and just might make you dance! Informative sleeve notes with English translations complement this lovely album.

If Llan De Cubel have made a name for themselves in the last decade or so, their reputation in Spain and beyond can't compete with that of the country's most successful folk group, Galicia's Milladoiro. They are like a Galician version of Ireland's Chieftains; they have played their music on stages around the world, recorded more than a dozen albums as a band, composed and performed several film soundtracks, and constantly sought ways to improve Galician music. They can also, like the Chieftains, sound rather staid and conservative on record. But in concert, they are always a fresh, enjoyable and lively band. Which makes it nice that their latest release, As Fadas de Estraño Nome [Discmedi Blau DM 115CD], is a double CD of Milladoiro live in concert. Recorded in 1995 in Buenos Aires' Cervantes National Theater, the CDs contain 90 minutes of music that range from songs (Milladoiro rarely sing on record, but they do sing in concert) to quick-paced dances like their well-known bagpipe tune "Aires de Pontevedra," to slower numbers taken from their famous soundtracks and thematic compositions such as Iacoubus Magnus and Galicia No Tempo, both of which have been released as CDs. In all they play more than twenty instruments including flute, fiddle, gaita (Galician bagpipe), oboe, clarinet, ocarina, whistles, uillean pipes, mandolin, bouzouki, guitar, Celtic harp, accordion, keyboards and a richly varied array of percussion. Bringing this arsenal to bear on the rapt Argentine audience, they make music as carefully textured as it is lovingly harmonized, and always melodically beautiful. This set's another milestone for Milladoiro.

The late-breaking news is that the US-based Green Linnet label has made As Fadas de Estraño Nome available in the States. It is a slightly shortened version of the concert, which fits on one CD instead of two. Only one of the tracks that was cut really hurts the disc, however, and the one-CD version is a much more efficient and cost-effective proposition for American listeners.

Like Cher and Madonna, Galician singer Uxía only needs one name; people at home know who she is. After a stint as the voice of the famous group Na Lua, Uxía moved on to a solo career as one of the few outstanding singers on the Galician music scene. Her latest CD, Estou Vivindo No Ceo [Nube Negra 1.010], finds Uxía singing traditional Galician songs, as well as a few from medieval manuscripts. Co-arrangers Nacho Muñoz and Quico Comensaña introduce her powerful, earthy vocals into a variety of different settings, from tender sadness on the title track to energetic Celtic music on "Aquestas Noites Tan Longas," piano jazz on "Canto de Nadal" and on to world-music fusion on "Tua Nai E Meiga." The common thread to most of the arrangements, besides Uxía's distinctive voice, is that they feature Muñoz's piano and keyboard playing prominently. In general, this is fine; the only criticism I have is an over-reliance on keyboard washes on a couple of the slow songs. The lush droning threatens to homogenize the sound of the various voices and instruments. Luckily, this occurs only rarely on Uxía's album, which also uses Basque accordion, North African percussion, European violins, mandolins and cellos, and, of course, Galician gaita to realize its ambitious meld of Galician and other musics.

A similar breadth of stylistic influences is evident on Navicularia [Do Fol DF 002], the debut release by the sextet Berrogüetto. This is no surprise, since Comensaña, who is partly responsible for the arrangements on Estou Vivindo No Ceo, is also one of Berrogüetto's members, playing Celtic harp and bouzouki. Comensaña and the other members of Navicularia are serious students of traditional, jazz, classical and medieval music, and many hold degrees from Galicia's conservatories and music schools. The results of their first foray together into the studio are a far cry from purely traditional music, as well as from the more classical and Celtic-revival style of Milladoiro. Instead, the dominant feeling on the album is somewhere between low-key contemporary jazz and traditional folk. Even a traditional religious march ends up sounding like a gentle piece of jazz on soprano sax before the hurdy-gurdy adds a medieval touch. Several pieces approach the sort of folk-jazz that is coming out of Brittany these days with bands like Tammles and Ti Jaz; this makes sense as several members of the group have studied with Breton musicians like Jacky Molard and Soïg Siberil. For the more traditionally inclined, a nice bonus on this CD is the participation of As Pandereteiras de Cantigas e Agarimos, a group of seven women who sing and play tambourines. Their contributions retain much of the stark power of their unison choral approach, but add modern arrangements using the band's full sound palette.

Although the history of Galicia and that of northern Portugal have diverged in recent years, they have always been closely related in language, culture and music. So it is that Realejo, a group from Coimbra, can speak of "interceltic characteristics," suggesting a connection not only to Britain and Ireland but also to its neighbor Galicia, which also considers its heritage Celtic. In actuality, however, Realejo's CD Sanfonia [Movieplay PE 51.023] will probably remind listeners more of medieval music and of continental musics from Spain, France and Italy - all the more so because the group's repertoire is centered on the Portuguese hurdy-gurdy, an instrument that had died out until it was rebuilt by Realejo's leader, Fernando Meireles. Still, Sanfonia is not dominated by any one sound; rather, accordions, fiddles, mandolins, woodwinds and other instruments all have their moments in the limelight, and there is much creative interplay among the instruments. The arrangements are clean, bright and brisk, somewhere between chamber-folk and traditional dance music. The tunes are mostly either "traditional" or "popular," (I confess I don't know the difference between the Portuguese meanings for these terms) except for a few written by band members and one piece by Paganini. In all, this is a good place to begin an exploration of north Portuguese music, and a real find for hurdy-gurdy enthusiasts.

This is from the current issue of Dirty Linen
The Dirty Linen Pages are all copyright ©1997 by Dirty Linen, Ltd, Baltimore, MD

You can read more articles by Steve Winick on his Homepage.
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