05/24/2024
Sylvain Leroy/La Recherche - Propositions d’un sonneur de biniou/Coop Breizh/2024
Personnel:
Sylvain Leroy : binious
Invités:
Jorj Botuha - bombard
Alain Pennec - accordeon
Erwan Hamon - bombard
Matthieu Riopel - bombard
Mathieu Sérot - bombard
Rozenn Talec -vocals
Mathieu Hamon - vocals
Alain “Benny” Naël - vocals
Jean-Yves Le Bot - drums
Alex Tual - percussion
Yannig Noguet - accordeon
Below is an article that we did not write but did liberally translate from the French original. It was written by Gwenaël Merret for a local publication in the Redon Area - the original article is also presented to the right - click on it to (slightly) enlarge. With particular interest in the “binaural” and “spatialized” sound aspect, after a certain of our reviewers finally gets a decent set of headphones we’ll add our own collective thoughts about the recording to the article, at the bottom, making this a hybrid of article and review.
Binioist Sylvain Leroy is organizing an instrumental and singing aperitif on Saturday May 25 at Danett, in Redon, as well as workshops to discover spatialized sound on the occasion of the release of his new CD.
“My album is the first recording of traditional music in binaural sound!“, smiles Sylvain Leroy, as he signs a copy of La Recherche - Propositions d’un sonneur de biniou (Research, proposals from a biniou player). A biniou CD? This brash instrument, always in the background, which plays an octave higher than the others? Sylvain Leroy dared to do it and he did it in a very good way. To experience the results of his research, he is organizing an aperitif at Danett Music, at 51, rue de la Châtaigneraie in Redon, an apéro sonné on Saturday May 25, 2024 from 11 a.m. The curious can also participate in a workshop to discover spatialized sound, as recorded on a good part of the album by sound engineer Jasmine Scheuermann.
A superb cast
“I might not have made this record without meeting them,” explains the modest native of Saint-Pern in Ille-et-Vilaine, who has lived in Allaire for years. He invited his usual playing partners to accompany him on this musical adventure. After 30 years of biniou he has accumulated a veritable ‘who’s who’ of Breton music: musician and instrument maker Jorj Botuha, the modest and brilliant accordionist and talabarder (bombard player) Alain Pennec, the very talented talabarder Erwan Hamon (from Hamon Martin Quintet), Matthieu Riopel and Mathieu Sérot, singers Rozenn Talec, Mathieu Hamon, Alain “Benny” Naël, drummerJean-Yves Le Bot, percussionist Alex Tual and accordionist Yannig Noguet . The diverse array of superb accompanists who took part in this recording is a sign of the value of the star!
Leroy plays mainly on instruments created by Tudual Hervieux. (tudual-hervieux.com, formerly Hervieux-Glet)
Listening with headphones is essential. The biniou here plays with subtlety and expressiveness, with a richness and freedom that Scottish bagpipe band players do not have because all the ornamentations are rigidly codified, referenced and named.
The art of transmission
“I had the chance to learn from very caring musicians, who were always happy to pass on their know-how to kids like me.” It must be said that 30 years ago, young people with eyes sparkling for the biniou were not that common in the streets! Sylvain Leroy chose the locale of Quimper for his initial studies due to logistics and transport: a hive of bagadou orchestras and traditional musicians including the charismatic Erwan Ropars, who passed in 2015 after leaving his mark on generations of musicians. Then to Lorient, the Mecca of Celtic music, for solid experience.
“Now it’s my turn to teach, and I do it with joy,” beams a man whose daily regimen finds him playing every morning “in my bunker set up in the garage”. Leroy became a Fest Noz musician in the hot and flourishing 1990-2000 era, "where we were asked to play the following week as soon as we got off stage”. Placing 3rd in the annual national championship at Gourin, with Erwan Hamon, and the winner of the Bogue d'Or competition in 2023, Leroy took care to vary the program on Recherche, all rooted in his preferred Vannes-Gallo regional repertoire.
The instrumental tracks were recorded outdoors in natural environments, letting the opening notes, before the articulation of the melody, respond to the chirping of the birds, the vibration of the reeds respond to the wind in the trees. The uncontrollable aspects of the live take were preferred over the more sterile search for perfection in the studio, which always risks blandness. How could one sound bland when playing “mod kozh” (old-style) instruments made by Jorj Botuha, copies of very old instruments with untempered scales that capture the ear and draw us back centuries, to distant settings?
Lettres de noblesse?
Frequently just the accompaniment, has the biniou now earned the right to be the main voice? On this recording, whether the partner is Mathieu Hamon, Rozenn Tallec, Jean-Yves Le Bot or Benny Naël - it works! From smiles to tears, Recherche also bring old songs back out of oblivion that deserve to continue to exist.
Sylvain Leroy has created a fully successful recording with La Recherche, proposition d’un sonneur de biniou. Like the beautiful sepia-toned cover photo signed by Tudual Hervieux, Recherche invites you to settle down and really listen, not to just gloss over as you would when scroll images on social media, and to let yourself be captivated by its primitive and buzzing vibration. Without a doubt, the completely solo biniou pieces which open, punctuate, and close the album are also worthy of a good listen! Sylvain Leroy gives this much-maligned instrument its ‘lettres de noblesse’.
To purchase the CD: https://www.coop-breizh.fr/11729-cd-sylvain-leroy-la-recherche-3760061305212.html
Gallo-vannetaise melody, with Mathieu Riopel (bombard) and Sylvain Leroy (biniou) at Gourin in 2022
