Reviews

Artist: Bagas Degol
Album: Party Like It's 1399
Label: Top Of The Hill Recordings
Tracks: 13
Rating: ***
Contact: cornishmusic@btinternet.com

Bagas Degol are probably not going to do for Cornish Music what Martin Bennet and Peatbog Faeries have done for traditional Scottish music, this is not  a west country version of acid croft. What it is is an exotic blend of traditional Cornish and Breton tunes with some subtle modern undertones.

It's been said that the 14th centuary was one of the worst to have lived in, but if it laid down the foundations for this album it can't have been all bad. The key to all of the tracks on the album is their dancability and there's not one that doesn't encourage movement.

This is not just an album of soundscapes and landscapes. A number of the songs conjour images of maidens being danced around the village, in and out of houses, around the in and to the stone circle, as part of a local fertility rite.

The core of the tune is generally weaved by tabor drums and bagpipes. Warped around those are the more modern instruments of clarinet and sax. Add in a few samples and dubs to build in the occasional change in the pattern and you've found a common theme.

Cornish and Breton come out of a similar Celtic tradition that holds it apart from it's better known neighbours. That comes through when you pick up the very subtle French undercurrents to some of the tracks. It sort of flits into your mind and leaves again. There was also one bizarre moment where I thought I was being drawn into a West Country war of the worlds, strange.

There seems to be something of a buzz about Cornish music at the moment. Slowly but surely it's making it's way eastwards. Bagas Degol are in a position to lead that march out of the county in the same way that they have lead marches within it.

There are few albums that cover over six hundred years of music, fewer still that do it so well. Bagas Degol have delivered an album for which they can take much kudos. Kernow knows how to party be it  1399 or 2004