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Written in Folk Roots issue 162, 1996

OS CEMPÉS
Os Cempés
Do Fol DF 003 (1996)

CHOUTEIRA
Chouteira
Do Fol DF 001 (1995)

BERROGÜETTO
Navicularia
Do Fol DF 003 (1996)

It appears, from these three strong albums, that the period might have ended when many Galician musicians drew so deep from the powerful wellspring of Irish music that some of them, rather than using it as a source of ideas and different perspective, seemed to be trying to make Galician music more like it.

      The bands Os Cempés and Chouteira are contemporary manifestations of the gaita, pandereta, tamboril and bombo (bass drum) group tradition.
      The Os Cempés album was recorded live, and has a particularly involving communicative energy; pointing up the difference in the way musicians play and sing when in front of a responsive audience as against a usually more introverted studio performance. The tunes, some new compositions by band members, more traditional - muñeira, xota, pasodoble, alborada - are full of swing with interesting ledges and corners, and given extra tension from the particular scale intonation of the Galician gaita (played by Antón Varela). Oscar Fernández Sanjurjo’s accordion, in something like standard equal temperament, might be expected not to fit, but its drive and chug overcomes, and indeed derives energy from, intonation differences. When Serxo Cés, player of the trilling pandereta, bursts into song in Mazurcas his pitching has some non-standard patches, too, but they in no way impede the exuberant spirit.

      7-piece Chouteira, recorded in the studio, has a full complement of traditional instrumentation including a trio of gaitas - an important aspect of the Galician tradition, but eschewed by most modern bands largely on economic grounds. This band’s particular strength is Uxia Pedreira, a singer with the old, hard-edged, passionate melismatic style that is the natural partner to the wildness of pipes and percussion. Material is, as with Os Cempés, a healthy mix of traditional and new composition.

      Berrogüetto’s Navicularia, fine subtle playing of a mix of tradition and new composition moving between elegant and energetic, using piano, bouzouki, guitar, sax and rhythm section with fiddle, harp, gaita and hurdy-gurdy, features by far the most intricate studio work of the three albums. The six-piece band itself is instrumental, but both here and live it performs with Cantigas e Agarimos, an ensemble of seven young women vocalists and pandereta-players; after a run of largely instrumental Galician contemporary bands for some years, it seems that the Galician voice is definitely back, and it’s most welcome.

      All three albums are evidence that the tradition is alive and on the march. The fact that the most “crossover” of the three receives the most opulent packaging gives the impression that the label, which obviously has a feeling for the essence of Galician music, sees in Berrogüetto a greater marketability. They might be right, I suppose, and good sales for one album can support the release of others less commercial. Nevertheless, while all are attractive albums, for this foreigner at least the heart beats most strongly in the spirit of Os Cempés and in the singing of Uxia Pedreira.


© 1996 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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