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Written in fRoots issue 234, 2002


ÁVALON
Beltaine
Discmedi Blau DM 657-02 (2002)

Pushing on past the warning signals of the new-age-sounding band name and album title, and the lamely posed cover shot of them in a rainbow of dress fashions and photo-session makeup, and starting listening in the middle of the album rather than the beginning, the key to this young female Galician five-piece is perhaps to be found in track 8, a traditional muiñeira delivered in the spirited group-vocal-over-percussion style of a pandeiretera group. Listening from there to the end, and then returning to pick up the first half, what emerges seems to be a group moving outward from the strength-in-numbers of the traditional-style vocal group to writing their own material and embracing the musical ideas and influences of their age.
      The line-up is lead singer and main writer Patricia Hermida on guitar with Xela Conde, Macarena Montesinos, Belén Leis and Marta Barrecheguren singing and playing pito, cello, percussion, violin and keyboards. The list of five session musicians casts light; it includes as producer and keyboard player Mercedes Peón’s co-producer Nacho Muñoz, and percussionist Leandro Deltell of Budiño’s band and of Laio. The fast vocals and conspiratorial whispers of Muiñeira De Fermin over churning keyboard bass, while working well in its own right, certainly has echoes of the opening track of Peón’s album Isué, and the more one compares the more it appears that Ávalon are inspired down a Peón-blazed path. It’s a great path, though, and it would be a waste if no-one used it to get where they need to go. This, the second Ávalon album, grows with repeated listens, and indicates that they’re likely to dive into the undergrowth to hack some clearings of their own.


© 2002 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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