Monday's mp3: Occitan Voices

I'm wallowing in regret that I didn't hie myself forth to see a concert last week. It was a rare visit by an emerging French group that may not be a household name in the USA -- even among world music fans -- but they should be on your musical radar. Their music is a fascinating blend of vocal harmonies, backed by percussion and, sometimes, horns.

Here's the skinny from their myspace:

Lo Còr de la Plana (pronounce "loo quar dey la plan") is a Marseilles' choir from the quarter "La Plaine", six hectic singers, accompanied by percussions (bendirs and tamburello), handclapping and foot-stomping. Founded in 2001, the group devoted itself to the systematic re-creation of the popular Occitan patrimony. Their feverish singing ranges all the repertoires, religious or unbridled, repetitive or occasional, all of which, very often, at the same time! With this new and final will to be done with traditional singing, to cross swords with vocal music and polyphony, even if it entails waking up those who had been dreaming of watching the latter die in their coteries. In actual fact, these singers go everywhere, in churches, factories, bars or theatres, and do not hesitate to mix the baffling paganism of the ancient Occitan heritage with the concerns of Marseilles' musicians of today. Then, they deny no influence, from Bartok to the Massilia Sound System, no origin, from Oran to Le Rove, their only claim being to make detonate, reverberate and rave into their music all that their city and the surrounding world give them to hear. A police siren, a new-born child, the remnants of a paradise or of the fantasy of a paradise, a party with too much booze, sheep, wolves, and, to make a long story short, the peaceful and intoxicating fury of everyday life!

[mp3] Lo Còr de la Plana: Feniant E Gromand
from the album Tant Deman

Don't make the mistake I made; catch them live while you can:

Mar 31 2009 8:00P	DAYTON (USA)	BOLL THEATER, JOHN F. KENNEDY UNION, Ohio
Apr 3 2009 8:00P	ARLINGTON (USA)	ROSSLYN SPECTRUM, Virginia
Apr 4 2009 8:00P	NEW YORK (USA)	SYMPHONY SPACE, New York
Apr 22 2009 8:00P	GENK (BELGIË / BELGIQUE)	Limburg
Apr 23 2009 8:00P	TERNAT (BELGIË / BELGIQUE)	Flemish Brabant
Apr 24 2009 8:00P	LEOPOLDSBURG (BELGIË / BELGIQUE)	Limburg
Apr 25 2009 8:00P	DENDERMONDE (BELGIË / BELGIQUE)	East Flanders
Apr 26 2009 8:00P	HEIST OP DEN BERG (BELGIË / BELGIQUE)	West Flanders
May 5 2009 8:00P	LIMOGES (87)	Limousin
Apr 10 2010 8:00P	BOUGENAIS (44)	Le Nouveau Pavillon, Pays de la Loire

More Lo Còr de la Plana:
myspace
youtube