Monday, August 16, 2010

Manau

There is a French group called Manau I have listed in my music favourites.  OK, so hip hop was never one of my favourite types of music before.  I normally find it to have violent undertones and somehow it just grates on my nerves.

This group is different.  It's French, and the bulk of the music I have heard and of which I have viewed videos on You Tube centres around the Celts.  Most folks forget that the Celts were as much a part of French history as the history of the British Isles, be it the Gauls or the Bretons, or any of a number of groups which passed through what is now France (named for the Franks) on their migration ever westward.

Of particular interest to me are "La Tribu de Dana" and  "Le Chant des Druides", two pieces which stir in me my own Celtic roots, and even though it has been decades since my college French classes, I recognised a good deal of what was being said or sung.  A printout of the lyrics in the original French cleared up most of the rest, and I can now understand about 95% of the songs without having to make that backward leap of first translating it in my head into English before understanding it.  What a breakthrough!

So if you're interested in something recorded in 1998, something that may be a stretch for your musical tastes, give the album "Panique Celtique" a listen.  There is some background sampling from Alan Stivell on the songs.  I understand it was the subject of a lawsuit, and I wish both parties well.  His music just somehow belongs with theirs, and the Celtic images in the videos are wonderful too. 

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