Dan Ar Braz, Made In Breizh (Tinder Records, 2002)
Various Artists, Fest Vraz (Keltia Musique, 1998)

It’s been a while since I got my hands on a Dan Ar Braz CD, so I happily jumped at the chance to review this! Actually, it was 1992, and the CD was Borders of Salt, a low-key album recorded at Fairport’s Woodworm studio with Dan Ar Braz, Martin Allcock and Patrick Molard, with Ar Braz producing. This one is a different kettle of “fruits de la mer” altogether, recorded at various locations in Scotland, Brittany and Ireland, mixed at Dublin’s Windmill Lane studios and produced by Jacques Bernard and Donal Lunny with a cast of thousands.

Ok, “thousands” is an exaggeration, but there must be at least seventy musicians here, what with the Bagad Kemper, the Shotts Pipe Band and the Irish Film Orchestra among the assembled multitudes. Elsewhere, the enormous influence of Lunny dominates proceedings as the list of credits is packed with the names of his regular collaborators. Nollaig Casey, Liam O’Flynn, Ray Fean, Richie Buckley, Noel Bridgeman, Rod McVey and Eoghan O’Neill all contribute, along with Capercaillie’s Karen Matheson and Donald Shaw, singer Elaine Morgan and, well, lets just stop there!

Corralling the talents of such a disparate herd of musicians into a cohesive unit represents a tremendous achievement, but leaves the term “big production number” as an insufficient appellation. This is more a case of “Busby Berkeley takes a vacation in Europe’s Western fringes and decides to make a pan-Celtic music record.”

While Ar Braz is responsible for the lion’s share of the compositional credits, his role as a musician is sometimes reduced to that of a “bit-player in his own drama.” The traditional Irish “Spike Island Lasses” is pure Donal Lunny’s Coolfin, while “Evit Ar Braz,” with it’s skittering trip-hop rhythms and the wonderfully distinctive voice of Karen Matheson, inevitably sounds like Capercaillie with added Breton piping. All of this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If you’re going to work with a vast ensemble of musicians, you might as well recruit the very best and Ar Braz has, undoubtedly, done just that. He’s also a tremendous guitar player and the tracks “Green Lands,” “King of Laios” and “Call to the Dance” all featuring electrifying solos from the man himself.

It would be easy to simply describe this album as “flawless,” and leave it at that. After all, The standard of musicianship, composition, arrangement and production displayed here is nothing short of staggering. For some reason though, I keep hearing the quiet voice of Christy Moore (another long-time Lunny collaborator), in my head. In his song “Me and Bibi,” Moore tells how he came to be involved in traditional Celtic music: “it was time to seek out something more organic...” Made In Breizh is a gourmet recipe rather than everyday fare. In fact, it’s the full five courses with wine, tea or coffee and a complimentary mint. Rich food is a treat but too much of it can give a person the bellyache. While there will be times when I’ll luxuriate in devouring the contents of this CD, there will also be times that I won’t have the stomach for it. Enjoy your meal.

Fest Vraz is, indisputably, an album “made in Breizh!” It’s a 2-CD compilation from Keltia Musique, celebrating both 20 years of that esteemed label and the memory of its founder, Herve Le Meur. In recent years, Keltia Musique has passed into the hands of Herve’s son Alain, a man obviously dedicated to the standards of excellence set by Le Meur Snr.

Anyone who claims to love Celtic music, but owns nothing from Brittany, has a gaping hole in his or her CD collection. The thirty-six tracks presented here surely represent the most complete and consistent collection of Breton Celtic music ever assembled in a package of this type. The obvious precedent and comparator for Fest Vraz is Green Linnet’s Twentieth Anniversary Collection, which assembled the likes of Altan, Silly Wizard, Dick Gaughan and The Bothy Band under one roof. While the names of the Breton artists may be less familiar to non-mainland Europeans than their Scots and Irish brethren, the diversity of this music and the sheer talent of its practitioners is every bit as jaw-slackening.

This collection really does cover the dynamic and stylistic spectrum. Bagad Kemper are a legendary ensemble of massed bombardes, biniou (Breton bagpipes) and drums. Here, recorded live in the open air, they’re a musical thunderstorm; the two women (harpers and singers) who comprise Sedrenn are the clear fresh air in the aftermath. Dan Ar Braz is here too, with the most pretty and uplifting acoustic song from that aforementioned Borders of Salt album. Then there’s gravel-throated Michel Tonnerre, whose band rocks with enough genuine dockside barroom swagger to expose the Pogues as a bunch of London “Johnny-come-latelies” in the Celtic authenticity stakes.

While we’re on the singers, Gilles Servat gets a couple of tracks, one of which features his lyrics set to O’Carolan’s “Eleanor Plunkett” accompanied by the harp-based group, Triskell. Alain Pennec and Soig Siberil demonstrate an intoxicating melodic and rhythmic intricacy and a total mastery of diatonic accordeon and guitar respectively. Christian Lemaitre is another Breton guitar genius, and is featured here with the group Storvan.

I could go through every artist here, track-by-track, but it would serve no useful function beyond testing my capacity for superlatives to the limit. This collection is just superb from beginning to end, whether one is listening to some age-old traditional example of alternate singing for dancing or the breathtaking inventiveness of a contemporary “super group” like Barzaz. I’ve a long held and rather strange affection for maritime singing, so it’s worth mentioning that Cabestan are probably the best group in the world in that genre. Oh, and Patrick Molard is a devastatingly good piper, and, ok, you get the picture!

The hardest part of writing a CD review is often having to come up with a snappy, memorable, “in a nutshell” line to conclude it. This one will be easy. Herve Le Meur was the best friend that Brittany’s Celtic musical traditions ever had, and Fest Vraz is, quite simply, an essential introduction to them.