The second album by this über-talented trio from Canada’s Prince Edward Island province builds on their debut Corbeau which ranked high on the international traditional music charts. Auprès du Poêle (“around the woodstove”) starts off with a run of pretty traditional Celtic, Franco-Canadian and Maritime tunes and songs that showcase the solid skills of fiddler and singer Rowen Gallant, guitarist Jesse Périard and percussionist Caleb Gallant.
First comes a tune set that combines the traditional jig “Coalminer’s” with another jig and two reels penned by the band, “The Ukrainian Expedition,” “Mustard Foldies” and “Reel du Raclette,” respectively. The first sounds like a slip-jig to me, but anyway, all the tunes spotlight Rowen’s strong Irish fiddling style. Likewise the second track “Auprès du Poêle,” with lots of lightning-fast runs full of grace-notes, plus lovely multi-part harmonies on the vocal sections in French. Rowen does some lovely piurt à beul, the Quebecois-style mouth music, too. Then the “Igen” suite combines Irish-style banjo and Quebecois podorythmie or foot percussion on the “Igen” reel with straight Irish fiddling on “Magic Mark” and a traditional Scottish jig called “Alan MacPherson of Mosspark.”
After that things loosen up and spread out a bit. Rowen sings lead (and plays some haunting fiddle) on the traditional song “When First I Came To Caledonia” with some evocative B3 organ from Mark Busic (who engineered and mixed the CD and has recorded with more than one Quebecois group). There’s a contemporary Celtic-style instrumental in “Shoot The Moon,” a traditional Quebecois tune “Maudit Anglais” with the members of Les Poules à Colin, a somber rendition of Kay Sutcliffe’s English coal-country ballad “Coal Not Dole” and a suite with members of The Duhks that includes a Swedish march, a Quebec reel, a Scottish reel and the traditional “Katie Hill.” (Leonard Podolak of The Duhks produced the CD and plays banjo.)
Take a listen to the title track. I think you’ll agree that this bunch of Canadians is the best kind of traditional ensemble, one that takes the music very seriously but has a heck of a lot of fun playing it.
(self-released/SOCAN, 2016)
Ten Strings and a Goat Skin will tour parts of the U.S. in July. You can find the dates on their website and Facebook.
