Christian Laurence is an accordionist from Quebec, accompanied on Christal by Dorothée Hogan on piano. He has worked with a number of dance troupes and traditional Quebeçois music groups, including La Grande Chaâne.

Christal is one of those problematic albums that I find particularly difficult to review. The music is pleasant enough, and there are several tracks that hold themselves above the collection as a whole, but there is really nothing that I can call "exceptional." Laurence's skill is certainly not at issue -- there are passages that are remarkable both for their fluency and their precision, and the musicianship is certainly of a high caliber.

"Reflet celtique" has a nice, melancholy feel to it, at least in the introduction, which transmutes into a more expected kind of "Celtic dance." The following track, "Tum balalayka," by the same token, is suitably Slavic in feeling, with a vein of melancholy that is almost morose, punctuated by livelier sections that follow the expected course of a Russian song. "Coupe de Christal" is another track that reveals what I might call a Franco-Celtic interface, a quiet and very lovely ballad that reminds me of traditional songs from the Scots border. The following track, "La Grenouille," has a sort of swampy, bullfroggy feel to it that offers a nice break from the expected.

Perhaps that's my problem with this collection -- it's pretty predictable and, with a very few exceptions, falls into a sidewalk-café-with-sidewalk-musicians pattern. The music is fine, but nothing beyond that. I can't say that I was impressed one way or the other by this one.

Canto di tenores is a traditional form of singing from Sardinia. This particular brand of polyphony uses four voices -- the boghe, contra, mesa 'oche, and bassu. The boghe is the lead singer, who begins the song and carries the melody, while the other voices provide rhythm and counterpoint. Caminos de pache marks the return of the Tenores di Bitti, a group that has a thirty year history (although half the personnel have changed), are regarded as masters of the style, and are considered the top traditional group in Sardinia. The musicians are Daniele Cossellu, boche and mesa boche, Pierluigi Giorno, contra, Mario Pira, bassu, and Piero Sanna, boche and mesa boche, joined on this recording by Totore Chessa on organetto and Luigi Lai on launeddas.

It is somewhat misleading to refer to this style of singing as "polyphony." The boche is supported by the other three singers in what amounts to a vocal drone; one listens in vain for any sort of harmony or counterpoint. Strictly speaking, I suppose one can call this polyphony, but simply by the fact that there are two vocal lines -- don't expect to hear any baroque richness of texture. I think one has to be a devotee of Mongolian throat singing to be as captivated by this as many are reported to be: the label's publicists report that Frank Zappa, Peter Gabriel, Lester Bowie and Ornette Coleman have been intrigued by Tenores di Bitti, and they did do an album for Gabriel's Real World label, but on every listening, from the first to the fourth or fifth, the songs seem to blend together into one long drone, punctuated by some actual singing. The really big excitement comes when a song stops suddenly, without a coda or even a finale. (Except, of course, in those selections marked by breaks between stanzas, such as "Battos turritas e unu caddone," one of the more irritating songs on the disc.)

Well, it's evident from my reaction to Caminos de pache that I will never become an aficionado of Bulgarian choral music or Mongolian throat singing, or, indeed, Sardinian canto de tenores, in spite of the best efforts of my somewhat esoterically inclined friends. So be it. For those of you inclined toward the vocally weird, this may be right up your alley.

I can't really recommend either of these albums, unless you are a real fanatic for either the traditional music of Quebec or of Sardinia. I'm afraid, on the strength of these offerings, that is not something in my future.