Reprinted from Green Man Review.
Athanor is a duo from Quebec made up of Michel Bordeleau and Martine Chiasson. He plays mostly guitar and she mainly bows the violin, although they offer us a wide variety of other instruments: Chiasson is heard on crumhorn, folk fiddle, viola, tubular bells and even rainstick, while Bordeleau performs on mandolin and mandola, hurdy-gurdy and percussion. There is a lot of multi-tracking, particularly of Chiasson’s bowed instruments, often playing in counterpoint, giving a fuller sound than one might normally expect from just two musicians. Their Web site informs us that Athanor can be booked for live performances, but presumably one would not hear the same rich blend of instruments in a live performance, even with the additional musicians that they say they can call on.
This is clearly no idle boast, for the two principals are augmented on most pieces on this recording by Shane Mackenzie on double bass and Guy Thouin on diverse kinds of percussion. Although this is essentially an instrumental recording, Bordeleau is credited with vocals on the first cut on the disc but this contribution is confined to some la-la-la-ing for a few bars. He gets a chance to sing properly in a robust voice a little later on his own song “Le Metayer,” while Chiasson shows off her talents only in mysterious, wordless singing on a few tracks that are also multi-tracked. The booklet to Athanor’s eponymous CD and the further information to be found on the Web site inform us that their main source of musical inspiration is found in Celtic music, from Brittany, Ireland, Galicia and Scotland, but they also naturally play Quebecois as well as early music and acknowledge the influence of sounds from eastern Europe. This last element is particularly noticeable in some of the more unusual and complex rhythms to be heard on this disc, without ever venturing into the more outlandishly modish fusions that have proliferated in the modern global village of roots music. These varied sources are, however, a question of inspiration, not of origin, for all the pieces on the disc are credited to either Chiasson or Bordeleau, with not a “trad. arr.” in sight.
The music is thus nearly all instrumental and much of it would be good for dancing, even if one would need a few extra legs to do justice to some of the tunes. It begins with a fast tune, Breton-style, in 4/4 that would be jolly if the minor key did not give it a slightly more serious colouring. There is a more joyful set in the same rhythm four numbers later, consisting of “Montjoie” and “Les Etoiles Filantes” by Chiasson, in which Bordeleau’s hurdy-gurdy and the composer’s tubular bells, which owe nothing to Mike Oldfield, create a mood of renaissance festivity. The Web site says ‘medieval’, so either they are or I am a couple of centuries adrift. There were even moments when I wondered whether they could pass for Morris tunes.
Within the fairly narrow limits that they have set themselves, the performers strive to vary both the timbre and the rhythm. The second track is a languid waltz, “Renuncio,” while the title track is also a pirouetting, dreamy waltz, taken a little faster. As a trivia addict, I was delighted to learn from the website that an athanor is an alchemist’s crucible. The first two pieces leave the listener unprepared for “Equinoxe,” the third track, played in what I naively thought was 5/4 until I read that it was 10/8, reflecting the east European influences already mentioned. Presumably acting on the principle of varying the time signatures as much as possible, this extravagance is followed by “Hanter Dro Des Petits Cochons,” a highly foot-tapping tune in 6/8 time which the musicians describe as based on a Breton dance although for me it also has a slight Scottish flavor. It also shows off Bordeleau’s mandolin-playing. The pieces on this CD therefore rotate the time signatures almost in a regular pattern, with more east European sounds on “Danse Du Feu,” which, after a deceptive waltz-time intro with uncredited angelic voices (Chiasson’s?) bursts into a galloping and stumbling 7/8. Thouin’s percussion really comes into its own on these exotically timed pieces, which would not make the same impact without it. Predictably, this excitement gives way immediately to another dreamy waltz, played in homage to a guitarist unknown to me, Peter Chalmers, which appears to my ears to owe more than a little to Pachelbel’s canon.
Bordeleau’s and the CD’s only actual song, “Le Métayer,” is a tribute to the tenant farmer who brings us our food and drink that uses hurdy-gurdy and mandola as well as violin to produce a Breton sound sometimes reminiscent of the work of Alan Stivell before he became an electronic “world musician”.
The disc moves towards a close with two linked tunes “Flammes/Danse Des Spectres,” whose first element is another of Chiasson’s minor-key sad/joyful compositions, leading into an ostensibly ghostly dance that tries to offset its jollity with Thouin’s woodblocks doing service for skeletons rattling their bones. The final number, yet another languorous waltz, “Adieux à Brocéliande”, whose title evokes the transition from a mysterious past of Celtic legend to the post-Arthurian world, gives Chiasson vocal credits, but again this is limited to some ethereal la-la-las in the final third of this mesmerizingly repetitive piece.
These are musicians who exploit a narrow range of instruments very competently to produce entertaining, if not very demanding, music. The publicity on their website, as I have noted, offers their services for hire: they will perform in folk or period styles and are even prepared to dress up in appropriate costumes. They are not afraid to offer themselves as background music at your wedding or other celebration and before I read this offer I had already made a mental note to say that this was background music in a more positive and meritous sense than usually attaches to this often pejorative term (i.e. it is not “mere” background music).
Live, they could play for dancing at gatherings that want something a little different from standard party music. This CD is unlikely to occupy your machine for hours or days on end but you could happily put it in your player when you have friends round for dinner or while you are writing an article for Green Man Review. There are hardly any words to distract you from whatever else you are doing; there are no sudden musical shocks or cacophonous passages to interrupt conversation or thought. Just occasionally, a guest or passer-by might ask you what the music is, because there are probably few people who are already familiar with it, and one could then discuss the piece in question briefly before moving on. For my part, I fully intend to test my theory and I shall be surprised if Athanor does not arouse just a little occasional curiosity among my next dinner guests until the next dish or bottle of wine appears and we change the subject.
(Socan, 1995)
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