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Artist:
Babylon Circus
Title: Dances of Resistance
Label: Mr. Bongo
The Alternate Reality of BabylonCircus: Russian Hospital Tourism, Dublin
Police Chases, and Syrian Ska Dancing
In Syria, Muslim women clad in full-length, black garb dance in a carnival
procession. In Dublin with instruments in hand, band members chase policemen
chasing a band member, Benny-Hill style, through the streets. In Russia,
a near death experience coins the phrase “hospital tourism”
when a lead singer visits five hospitals in five days. These are the surrealistic
but real-life stories of Babylon Circus, French ska/reggae punksters whose
April 29 release Dances of Resistance (Mr. Bongo) coincides with a North
American tour.
Dances of Resistance carries a message of optimism in a world that offers
little hope. In the style of musical warriors like The Clash and sonic
rebels like Jimi Hendrix, Babylon Circus uses the power of the microphone
to address social and political issues, providing an alternate view of
what the official line claims is our reality. But their music is also
a call to put your wallflower days behind and join the dance. Lead singer
David Baruchel says the music of Babylon Circus is a “way to fight,
to be an actor in today's society rather than a victim”.
Some describe Babylon Circus as the French version of Gogol Bordello,
thanks to their sonic madness and stage antics. Their music is infused
with touches of Django Reinhardt, Balkan Gypsy music, and great French
singers like Edith Piaf or Jacques Brel. Bob Marley is also inescapably
present. Their eclectic fusion picks up where French alternative rock
band Mano Negra left off, both bands touring extensively in their quest
for social justice.
Wherever they go Babylon Circus creates journalistic snapshots of life
penned with music rather than words. While on tour in Syria for a month,
they wrote many of the tracks on Dances, taking in life around them in
the realization that what they experienced was not the same reality portrayed
through the Western media. They were the only European band brave enough
to take up the invitation to play at La Fête de la Musique in Damascus
three months after the start of the Iraq War.
“What we found there wasn't what we had been told by the press. It
wasn't as violent as it was supposed to be. Our music opened doors to
people in the streets”, says Baruchel. Who in the West would expect
to see Muslim women, in full black dress with their eyes barely visible,
joining the revelry and dancing to the music of Babylon Circus, right
alongside the men? When they paraded down the street, within minutes they
found themselves joined by 200 people, some of whom closed their shops
to join in.
The band captures these fleeting, special moments on Dances of Resistance,
from the consuming joy of street revelry in the instrumental track “Parade
acoustique” to the melancholic desperation of a man in love in “J'aurais
bien voulu.”
Their music can be taken two ways, with a deeper meaning always lurking
under the revelry and hilarity. “De la musique et du bruit”
tells the story of a district party in France, through the whimsical and
humorous eyes of a child. On a deeper level, though, the song addresses
immigration policy in France. Baruchel calls this double-edged story-telling
“salt and sugar.” Sometimes the band's subject matter becomes
its own soundtrack, as in the opening track “Contra La Guerra: Greva
General!,” which captures the sound of two million protesters in
an anti-war demonstration the band joined in Barcelona, highlighting great
sonic joy alongside strong political protest.
Then there is the time that David nearly lost his life in a battle with
a flight of stairs after drinking too much vodka post-gig in Moscow. Turning
what could have been a very tragic situation on its head, David instead
talks about the advantage it gave him in experiencing Russian hospitality
in a different way: “hospital tourism.” “I haven't seen
the Kremlin, but I've seen five different hospitals in Moscow!” Or
the time in Dublin that they were offered potato vodka, not realizing
that it was a crime to drink on the streets. It led to a police-chase
through the streets of a confused band member, followed by very concerned
band members in pursuit of the policemen. Comically, it didn't take long
for the police to decide to turn around and capture the closest band member:
David. It ended well enough with a big laugh in the police station.
Touring from city to city, from Babylon to Babylon, the band embraces
this pursuit of alternate realities and social justice. Life is sometimes
hard, and it takes its toll. But in the words of Babylon Circus, “sometimes
dancing is the best way not to fall.”
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Artist: Le Vent du Nord
Title: Dans les airs
Label: Borealis
A Baby Awakens in Quebec: The Wind Blows from the North with a Hurdy
Gurdy, Accordion, and a Sack of Potatoes
Le Vent du Nord Reinvents Old Quebec on Latest Recording with Mouth
Music, 'Lazy Step Dancing,' and Acadian Wit
Peek
in a kitchen window on a Saturday night in some Quebec villages, and
you'll see French, Irish, and Native American roots intertwine. You'll
hear the sound of a land where instruments were once scarce, the mouth
music and foot tapping that makes Quebecois music unique. You may glimpse
a later arrival, too: the button accordion that an enterprising 19th-century
potato company helped spread across rural Canada. And, of course, you'll
see locals singing their favorite songs, drinking, flirting, dancing,
and doing what for centuries Quebecois have been famous for: having
a contagiously good time.
Le Vent du Nord, a young quartet of singers and multi-instrumentalists,
captures the energy and mirth of a Saturday night kitchen, infusing
old Quebec with a breath of fresh, cosmopolitan air. Their latest album,
Dans les airs, meshes old songs they learned from the forgotten songkeepers
of French Canada-including a school janitor on Cape Breton-with their
own reels and tunes inspired by family traditions and the sounds of
Ireland, Scotland, and medieval France. It's a Saturday night get-together
with a gently modern twist.
The group began by chance, when a fire alarm in 2002 brought musicians
Nicolas Boulerice and Olivier Demers out of their practice rooms at
music school. Boulerice noticed Demers, fiddle in hand, and asked him
if he knew any old tunes. Demers, now a performer for Cirque de Soleil
when not playing fiddle and foot-tapping with Le Vent du Nord, answered
yes, and Le Vent du Nord was born. They eventually joined up with Simon
Beaudry, a multi-instrumentalist from one of Quebec's most musical villages,
and accordionist Réjean Brunet, who hails from a musical family
in a small town near the U.S. border.
Quebec's musical traditions sprang from its wild and wooly history.
The majority of French settlers who originally landed in New France,
a territory that once extended as far south as Florida, came from France's
western provinces, from the Celtic Brittany south to Bordeaux. They
spoke different dialects and had different musical traditions. They
also had few instruments. Yet Quebec's early farmers, lumberjacks, and
trappers longed for relief from their often harsh lives. That's where
dances like the Saturday night kitchen parties came in, the only events
of the sort sanctioned by the powerful Catholic authorities in Quebec.
“Because people loved to dance, they needed music,” explains
Boulerice. “They didn't have a lot of fiddles or flutes, so they
did what was called 'turlutte' instead, which is like mouth music. It
comes from the tu tu tu of the flute.” The instrument deficit and
mixing of Celtic and French traditions sparked another innovation, foot
tapping. “Foot tapping is unique. It's a way to do what the drum
often does,” Boulerice notes. “In the kitchen, if everyone
wants to dance, you have to keep the rhythm somehow. It's sort of like
lazy step dancing, sitting in a chair because of the limited space.”
However it was the songs, often in the form of call and response, that
dominated the dances.
Songs on Dans les airs like “Le veillée chez Poirier”
reflect this fun-loving spirit perfectly. The nonsensical song from
Beaudry's family recounts the odd flirtations and conversations of a
partygoer and a confusing gaggle of women. “It sounds very modern,
even though it's a very traditional song. The guy is at a Saturday party
in someone's kitchen and he's drunk, and he changes women with each
chorus and we don't really know why.” Boulerice explains. “We're
still trying to figure out what it's about.”
Yet while the early Quebecois partied, other French Canadians created
a vastly different repertoire. “The Acadians on Cape Breton were
deported by the British. So they still have very beautiful laments,
historical songs. In Quebec, we keep the happier side of the tradition.
We had a lot of lumberjacks who sang call-and-response songs to be able
to laugh and party at the end of a hardday working with horses or working
in the snow. It's the same roots, just where you got off the boat differed,”
Boulerice points out.
This old connection has been revived, thanks to an unusual friendship
that developed between Le Vent du Nord and a young Acadian man named
Robert Devaux. “We played in Cape Breton many times at festivals,
and each time we met up with Robert, we would sing songs for hours and
hours,” Boulerice laughs. “He's the only guy who can hold
a whole conversation through songs. He works at a school as a janitor
and sings all the time. He knows thousands of songs from his family.”
To thank Devaux, Boulerice sent him a CD of several of his grandmother's
songs. Soon, Devaux began sending back songs from his village, which
has proudly maintained its French heritage.
These bittersweet songs proved to be a gold mine, and several ended
up on Dans les airs. “Rosette” chronicles a humorous but mournful
conversation between two lovers, thwarted by the man's lack of means.
The sadness of the situation is tempered by wit in typical Acadian style:
When the woman chides him for being too poor to buy her a ring, he offers
to give her an air ring, one that will never hurt her finger. “Le
vieux cheval” is a monologue of a man trying to comfort his aging
horse. He reminds the long-suffering beast that soon he won't have to
pull a cart or do hard work anymore. He consoles the horse, but then
tells the animal he is poor and is going to kill him and eat him. This
tension between laughter and tears in many ways sets Acadian songs apart
from Quebecois.
While songs predominated, Canada's French settlers also built their
own instruments or adopted them from their Native American neighbors.
Drums, for instance, began to appear at kitchen dances, as Iroquois
and other indigenous people intermarried with French newcomers. New
France's settlers also made a few fiddles and even a hurdy-gurdy from
local wood.
The hurdy-gurdy, a stringed instrument with a rotating wheel that acts
as a constant bow, was common in France but a rarity in North America.
Le Vent du Nord has begun to change that. “We love to dig around
the very old French roots of our traditions,” Boulerice recounts.
“That's why we use the hurdy-gurdy. It's a French instrument, not
Quebecois. But it adds something special.” Known for its bulk and
temperamental tuning, the hurdy-gurdy can be quite a handful.
Boulerice built his first hurdy-gurdy himself, but had a hard time fitting
the entire thing in a case without removing the crank that turns the
wheel. This had comic consequences, Boulerice relates: “Once, I
was invited by some people living several hours away to come and play
hurdy-gurdy. I drove all the way there, opened the case, and everyone
was saying, 'Wow, what a great instrument!' But then I started looking
around for the crank and couldn't find it. I had left it at home! They
still make fun of me for that!” Now, Boulerice has what he call
the “Rolls Royce” of hurdy-gurdies, and things are a lot simpler.
Nonetheless, sometimes even the best hurdy-gurdy has a rough day, as
proven by a recent concert in Montreal in sub-zero temperatures. “I
could not keep it in tune. That day was a bit hard on the instrument,”
Boulerice chuckles, who vows not to repeat that experience.
While Le Vent du Nord breaks new ground by adding hurdy-gurdy, it keeps
another instrumental traditional alive, albeit a newer one: the diatonic
button accordion. These instruments became easy to mass produce starting
in the 1800s and were all the rage around Quebec. But they only became
truly ubiquitous once a company selling potatoes launched a clever advertising
scheme: “If you bought potatoes in bulk from this company,”
Boulerice explains, “they would give you an accordion. So everyone
had one.” The squeezeboxes remain popular to this day from Acadia
and Quebec down to Louisiana Cajun country.
Le Vent du Nord uses this embarrassment of musical riches freely, taking
songs and extending them with newly composed reels, or using old texts,
some handed down from family members, to craft new songs. “My grandfather
wrote the lyrics to 'Les larmes aux yeux'”-also on “Dans les
airs”-“but I couldn't remember the melody. I had a new baby
who was crying all the time and I wanted to play music, but he was always
crying. So I told him, just let me work on this song. And he fell asleep
on my lap while I was at the piano, as I composed a new melody. Two
hours later, when the baby awoke, the song was done. The baby inspired
the music.”
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Artist:
Alex Cuba
Title: Agua del Pozo
Label: Caracol Records
The
Gibson-Toting, Afro-Sporting, Bellbottom-Wearing New Voice of Cuba: The
Unexpected and Soulful Essence of Alex Cuba
Alex
Cuba had to leave his birth country to find his own voice. “From
my heart, I can tell you that I don't know if I would be singing if
I had stayed in Cuba,” he says. His new album, Agua del Pozo, spotlights
a soulful voice that takes cues not only from the powerful musical heritage
of his homeland, but from Michael Jackson, Ray Charles, and-if you count
the vintage Gibson guitar-Elvis Presley. The disc could easily find
itself alongside Yerba Buena or Aterciopelados, in the collection of
a Latin Alternative fan, or alongside Jamiroquai and Prince, in the
collection of an eclectic listener with soul and jazz leanings.
“There is definitely a cliché in Cuba of what a singer is
supposed to sound like,” Alex continues. “Cuban music is mostly
performed in large ensembles. Ninety-nine percent of the time the singer
is somebody that has a huge, bright voice, to command that force, right?
Because of that, my father, my first music teacher, didn't understand
the quality of my voice.” Meanwhile, Alex's fraternal twin Adonis
does have “a Cuban sounding voice.” Their father was completely
sold on the idea that Alex was going to be an instrumentalist. He was
doing well as a bass player developing a name for himself; even winning
Best Album at Cubadisco (Cuba's equivalent to the Grammys) in 1999.
But everything changed right around that time when Alex moved to Canada.
It was a symbolic moment that year when Alex walked into a second-hand
store and for some reason a pair of flair cut jeans jumped out at him.
“I tried them on and they were my exact size; they were just right,”
remembers Alex, who wears his hair in an unabashed afro, with sideburns
to match. “I realized those pants represented a lot of my musical
influences. When I went to Canada I found it to be a very open place;
a new country, in many ways. They will take any form of art, as long
as it's natural or honest. So I found a lot of space here to be myself.
I put on those pants and that look was very in tune with my sound. The
'70s had a great impact on my music even though I was born in 1974.
I believe I am now a mix between the '70s and somewhere in the late
'90s and on to the future. When I step on stage, that is the first thing
you will get from me. You can see my identity as well as hear it in
my music.”
When Alex visited Cuba this year, some Cubans spoke to him in English,
thinking he was a foreigner with his style of dress. One woman looked
at him and said, “Hey you, Michael Jackson. Where do you come from?”
The unexpected combination of Alex's style and his new home spurred
Exclaim Magazine to write: “Five years ago it would have been inconceivable
that some of the most inimitable Cuban music today was coming not from
the land of the son or the barrios of New York but an isolated, rural
area of British Columbia, in the form of a baby-faced, afro-haired,
Cuban immigrant that could surpass Seu Jorge in coolness factor.”
But it is just this juxtaposition that gave Alex the freedom to find
his own voice, exploring sounds that resonated from his past, Cuban
and otherwise.
The “Feeling” movement in Cuba, which uses a blues and jazz
guitar approach to boleros, had a strong impact on the music of Alex's
father. Alex also remembers his father playing Spanish versions of Elvis
Presley and Beatles songs. “I didn't even realize they were Elvis
songs until I saw a Canadian reacting to him playing in our kitchen!”
says Alex. Alex had stayed away from the electric guitar because he
thought everyone would think, “There's a Latin guy with an electric
guitar. He must think he's Santana.” But once he was in this new
setting, where he could draw freely from whatever moved him, he realized
he liked the old electric guitar sound and got himself a vintage Gibson,
which is featured throughout the new album. “Plus I found out that
whoever had the guitar in his hand is the leader of the band,”
chuckles Alex.
“In Cuba we all play for musicians. If you look at the Buena Vista
Social Club, an American producer flies down there, puts a bunch of
old people together and changed again the way the world looked at Cuban
music,” exclaims Alex. “It took an outsider to find the most
important thing in Cuban music: the essence. That is what is going to
appeal to people. The rest will appeal to musicians, but the song will
appeal to people. And there are more people in the world than musicians,”
laughs Alex. “I want to play for people. I try to play the essence.”
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