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Written in Folk Roots issue 105, 1992
 

MILLADOIRO
Castellum Honesti
Green Linnet GLCD 3055 (1991)

LLAN DE CUBEL
Na Llende
FonoAstur FAL 8718 (Vinyl LP,1990)

XARÉU
L'Aire Les Castañes
FonoAstur FAL 8722 (Vinyl LP, 1990)

Castellum Honesti is the latest in a long line of releases, including some on CBS Spain, by Galician band Milladoiro; I think its first licensed to a US label, though recorded in Dublin's Windmill Lane studio. Pity the liner notes couldn't have been more informative to a presumably new English-speaking audience; the blurb reads like a press release (not surprisingly, since it was written by their US agent).
      One of the strengths of Milladoiro is that unlike some of the other Galician bands at the top of the concert pay scale, they run to the expense of having two gaiteiros, though they're not much in evidence on this album; much of the distinctive Galician sound comes from two sets of pipes often playing in parallel thirds, and the traditional town pipe bands which play at village fiestas usually have two or three gaitas, bass drum, a small snare side-drum and tambourine. While other concert bands, such as Na Lua and Brath, are rockist, avowedly attempting new directions in Galician music and making the big noise often needed in outdoor, town centre shows, Milladoiro goes for a more chamber, intellectual treatment of the tunes, with less of the enjoyable percussive thump, clatter and pipe skirl heard in traditional bandas de gaitas, but a wider instrumentation, some drawn from Irish music.
      If not particularly avant-garde, Milladoiro is no more stuck in a particular period of time than is the Chieftains, with whom it is often compared and has been known to collaborate, for example on the album A Chieftains Celebration. I'd like to hear more of the fire and passion of that recording in Milladoiro's own recent work; the full-bloodedness often in evidence on earlier releases - and heard here, for example on the up-tempo A Farruquiña, but which can also imbue slow tunes with something more than elegant limpid purity - seems to be ebbing away. This is Galician music, not Irish or New Age; perhaps an injection of the region's powerful and energetic harmonising vocal tradition might refocus things; after all, the Chieftains incorporate the occasional vocal. Still, after the mere 36½ minutes I'm left wanting more.

     To the east of Galicia along Spain's northern coast lies the region of Asturias. As one might expect, between the two regions there are similarities in musical culture, including use of the bagpipes. Lately a number of bands have arisen focussing on Asturian music in the light of revivals elsewhere. Thus Llan de Cubel uses chording, and bouzouki, strongly reminiscent of the style of Donal Lunny. Bouzouki player Elías García, who is also one of the two gaiteiros, knows what he's doing, though, and the result is not the superficial apeing of foreign styles but an absorption of good ideas on this very strong album. There even seems to be a slight Chinese feel on Nel Campu Ñacen Flores. After an instrumental first side of the LP vocals suddenly burst in on S2 Tr1, Cantar Del Ayeran Que Perdio La Guerra. The band is a five-piece, using - as well as gaitas and bouzouki - flutes, guitar, fiddle, accordion and side-drum to make a very integrated sound in distinctive tunes played with life and style.

      I'd no sooner written an enthusiastic review of the album by another Asturian band, Ubiña, than it split up. Four of its members - lead singer and elegant exponent of Asturian castañuelas Marta Arbas, Pedro Pangua (gaita, guitar, percussion), Jose Manuel Lopez (accordeon) and Michael Lee Wolf (guitar, fiddle), have now regrouped as Xaréu. Most discernible foreign influences here come from US-born Lee Wolf. Material includes a muñeira, a xota, a pasodoble (Pasodoble de Pittsburgh by Lee Wolf), an Italian tune and the Irish Monaghan Jig. As with Llan de Cubel, the result is fresh and distinctive; a living tradition can support many influences and directions - indeed that's what moves it forward - and new growth is definitely showing green in Asturias.


© 1992 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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