04/07/2025
Fleuves/#3/Coop Breizh/2024
Personnel:
Clarinette & Clarinette Basse : Emilien Robic
Fender Rhodes et programmations : Romain Dubois
Basse : Samson Dayou
Batterie : Antonin Volson
Invités
Guitare sur STANG (Cercle Circassien) : Rudi Blass
Chante : Sarah Floch (Galv Ar Sorserez)
After a glimpse of the possibilities on a single guest track on the 2011 Kentañ album Son al leur, Fleuves blew minds in 2016 with an eponymously named first recording that delivered a heady mixture of sublime clarinet, grooving bass, and the unique, delectable electro-acoustic sounds of a Fender Rhodes keyboard. It was a unique and potent combination that successfully bridged the gap between sophisticated electronic music and the traditional.
As seen in our recently translated article, Fleuves is back with a third release called simply #3. You might wonder what happened with #2, released in 2019? We didn’t write a review of it because we didn’t think it was that great, honestly. (We don’t want to just fill the site up with disappointed reviews.) All the same great ingredients were there, but the recipe skewed the portions to result in an album that, while it had some great moments, on the whole was less successful than its predecessor. I really didn’t like it at first, but over time I’ve grown to like it more after repeated listening. It’s okay.
Now there is a third recording. Were the failings of #2 due to the infamous sophomore slump phenomenon? Well, #3 is definitely an improvement over #2, but the recipe still isn’t quite right. Let me be clear - it is quite a good album. This is easily an album worth owning, to catch the not-infrequent moments when cool things are happening. As a typically hyperbolic Breton review states, it is “at the confluence of contemporary music and Breton traditions... Crossing between worlds, focused on the essential, Fleuves pushes the cursor towards trance with #3 to sublimate the power of collective dances as a melting pot of creative and social innovations.” This does point, in an obviously overblown way, to what they are trying to do here. Let’s talk about the music.
The album utilizes rather artily abbreviated names, all in caps, for most of the tracks: "PIL” for a Pilé Menu, "OUST” for the Ronds de Saint-Vincent (-sur-Oust, the river), and “STANG” which borrows Magma's guitarist Rudy Blas for the duration of a Cercle Circassien.
Track 1, ABER, has a sweet, melancholy melody delivered via the gorgeous clarinet tones from Emilien Robic that we all want to hear. Tracks 2, and 3, however, bring to the fore a problem shared with their cohorts in the band N’diaz, with whom Fleuves have been collaborating. There is no melody. To be more precise, there is not a full melody such as a call-and-response that is most typical in Breton and many other types of music. Instead there is a riff, half a melody, repeated endlessly with a lot of sonic space devoted to rhythmic support via the keyboards, most emphatically with programmed percussion, and bass. These tunes are still pretty cool and probably deliver the goods in a dance context, but as pieces of music standing on their own merits for listening, are not as satisfying.
Track 4, BALEU, gets the musical ball rolling again with a lovely tune and arrangement. The track is a slower one, a Loudéac Bal, and has minimal arrangement centered around the clarinet.
Track 6, GWRZ, taken from a “gwerz” lament by the singer and poet from the Côtes d’Armor region, Filomena Cadoret, is another of the standout tracks and again features a beautiful melody delivered by the clarinet, sensitively supported by the piano and bass, which builds to an exquisite crescendo.
Track 7, PIL, is a Pilé Menu, notable in that it uses the same melody as the Pilé Menu from their first album, which although a bit disappointing in that respect, is still pretty interesting in that it switches the clarinet over to the bass clarinet.
Track 9, GALV AR SORSEREZ, is a evocative song that features Brest-born vocalist Sarah Floch. It’s taken from her co-joint with Fleuves 2021 EP Odyssea.
Track 10, STANG, nominally a Cercle Circassien, borrows Magma's guitarist Rudy Blass. This piece gets lost in a crescendo of synthesized percussion and effects, building to a rather overwhelming, overly synthetic state that left this reviewer eager to move on to the next track!
The final track, ATAV, a gavotte, would be one of the most interesting ones on the recording but for a fatal flaw that slowly builds as it progresses. There is an out-of-rhythm, 3 against 4 timed motif played by the keyboard that runs directly against the typical gavotte 2 or 4 count. As the motif’s volume builds it slowly degrades the rhythmic integrity of the tune - therefore as a dance piece this just doesn’t work, although it’s interesting as an artistic concept.
So there it is, #3, the third release by the uber-popular group Fleuves, a very interesting recording with plenty of ups and also a few downs, sure to draw your interest over repeated listening.
- Fañch
