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XAVIER BODERIOU, SYLVAIN BAROU & ANTOINE LAHAYE - Liamm 

XAVIER BODERIOU, SYLVAIN BAROU & ANTOINE LAHAYE - Liamm 
Private Label  

Ably assisted by Sylvain Barou and Antoine Lahaye, Breton piper Xavier Boderiou has produced a masterpiece of pan-Celtic folk music here. Liamm means the link or connection in Breton, and there are plenty here, from the hardcore Scottish pipe reel Lexy McAskill to the popular Irish jig Tatter Jack Walsh, the old Breton Gavottes Pourlet to the modern hornpipe Web Culture by Australian piper Murray Blair.

The guitar fantasy Digor is one of two tracks where Lahaye cuts loose, and fits the mould of great Breton guitar music from the likes of Soig Siberil and Dan Ar Braz. The rest of Liamm is mainly pipes and mouth-blown woodwind from Boderiou and Barou. The highland bagpipe is a global instrument these days, and as well as traditional Scottish tunes such as John Roy Stewart or modern Canadian compositions like Lorna's Reel by Bruce Gandy, Boderiou's own compositions bring in sounds from the Balkans and from modern electronic music.

The pipe music for seven of Xavier's compositions is given in the sleeve notes, and although the arrangements are wide-ranging, the core is still clearly Breton. TAYT sits between a Scottish quickstep and a Breton march, Gemini's has all the snap of a strathspey but still that modal P-Celtic feel of Breton music, and Lament For A10 harks back to the creative mayhem of Bagad Kemper. Prizon Pontaniou, with Paul Saulan's lyrics, is unmistakably Breton even with Sylvain's duduk standing in for the Breton clarinet. Lahaye's Café Filtre interlude evokes the harp as much as the guitar, and Boderiou's final Suite Plinn underscores the Brythonic character of this music. Every piece is superbly played by this trio of world class musicians.

www.boderiou.com

Alex Monaghan

 

This review appeared in Issue 136 of The Living Tradition magazine