HAMON MARTIN QUINTET

With this new opus, the Redon-based band celebrates twenty years on the road and on stage. Over that time, they have recorded no fewer than six albums as a quintet, as well as a few others as a quartet and a duo.

For this seventh album, the quintet has chosen to revisit a repertoire designed for dance. It includes laridés, rond de Saint-Vincent, ridées de Guillac, an dro, mazurka, bal et rond paludier, pilé-menu... nothing but the very best.
But true to their innovative spirit and commitment, they offer us contemporary texts that meet up with the world of traditional music. Once again, this new album works in favour of social and environmental justice.  ‘et si l'idée coulait de source’ is there to prove it, taking aim at the Sainte-Soline mega-pools that have given rise to protests. Written by violinist Julie Bonnafont, the song skilfully blends common-sense poetry with hard-hitting lyrics about environmental issues.

For the album, the band called on a number of other contemporary authors. Denis Flageul, lyricist for the Kharoub show, wrote ‘L'histoire de ma vie’, and the late Gilbert Bourdin (Les Ours du Scorff) wrote ‘Les pommes dans le poirier’. And Melaine Favennec, from whom they borrowed the magnificent ‘Au gui l'an neuf’ (1978 title), an enumerative song that draws you into a spoken and sung trance, always with an attachment to the fertile soil of Upper Brittany.
There are also two poems by Paul Fort, ‘Quand le froid vient me saisir’ and ‘Où donc est ma peine’, set to music by these five brilliant musicians. Then there's a very beautiful and poignant text by Uzbek writer Abanday Tajimuratov, ‘Aydinlar’, about the drying up of the Aral Sea.
There's also a round of Saint-Vincent, ‘Vingt-sept à la dizaine’, a series of tens in a mad race.
All these texts are very pleasantly served by arrangements by Erwan Hamon or Janick Martin.
In a career spanning twenty-three years, including the previous quartet format, these talented musicians and singers have forged a distinctive musical language that draws on both tradition and the contemporary world around them.
Once again, a real success.

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