Kristen Nogues

"Why would I sing in French? I have Breton culture, I speak Breton, I live in Brittany, and the Breton language is thelanguage of this country..." So explained Kristen Nogu�s, of whom this is the first of the (rare) albums that she recorded'Marc'h Gouez,' is a fabulous voyage in space on each listening. Nogu�s learned the Breton language as a child, at the same time as the Celtic harp, taking lessons with Denise M�gevand, who would go on to teach others, notably Alan Stivell. At the beginning of the 1970s, she discovered the Breton song tradition (soniou and gwerziou) through Yann Po�ns and became involved in N�v�no�, a cooperative of traditionalexpression founded by G�rard Delahaye and Patrick Ewen. It was under this label that her first album 'Marc'h Gouez' wasreleased in 1976. With a dozen friends playing guitar, piano, violins, flutes..., Nogu�s composed not Breton music, but music from Brittany: a type of shared folklore in which imagination is married to the reality of the moment, that of social demandsand companionship. At the very beginning of the record, we can hear her drawing up a chair, before the plucked notes of theharp become a cascade: 'Enez Rouz' is an invitation to listen up close. We are reminded here of the Meredith Monk of 'Greensleeves,' there of the early albums of Brigitte Fontaine/Areski, elsewhere of Emmanuelle Parrenin, Pascal Comelade... Nogu�s rhyming pattern is ever changing: airy ('Hunvre'), cosmopolitain ('Pinvidik Eo Va C'hemener'), enigmatic ('Ar Bugel Koar'), profound ('Ar Gemenerez') or enchanting ('Hirness An Devezhiou'). And then there is the track from which the album takes its name: 'Marc'h Gouez' which, between nursery rhyme and chamber music, weaves a fabulous web in which the auditor is obliged to be caught. "Brittany equals poetry": so said Andr�... Breton, and Kristen Nogu�s proves it to be true.