This review was originally published on Green Man Review.
To my knowledge, this group produced but one CD, aptly titled Cocktail Diatonique! This is simply a blissful CD of diatonic accordions played to the max. Not loud like Bagad Kemper, but more like how Nigel Eaton uses his hurdy gurdy — with verve and a great deal of fun. It’s a purer sound than either Skolvan or Storvan, not surprising given the composition of the group!
You really can never get enough squeezeboxes in one band? Cocktail Diatonique has four button accordions as played by Yann-Fañch Perroches, Richard Falliano, Ronan Robert, Patrick Lancien, all full blown chromatic, and a bagpipe masterfully handled by Jacques Beauchamp. You’ve got Breton ballads, tunes, dances (Ronds de Loudéac, Gavotte, Plinn, Laridé) and drinking songs — what more could you want? Bliss! This is late, very late, night music for when the raucous bands like Skolvan and Storvan have done their rough magic, so that the crowd can continue to dance, just a little slower, a little more peaceful in nature. This is because Cocktail Diatonique plays – as the name clearly says – on diatonic instruments, what means it is chromatic play with the coupling of melody and bass. What it means to you is a sweet sound that will never be too loud, nor too aggressive!
Now sadly, I must note Cocktail Diatonique only lasted two years, and produced but one CD. It could well have only lasted a short whilenbecause Yann-Fañch Perroches is a very, very busy musician! A biography of this more than merely talented artist shows him to have been in Skolvan, Cocktail Diatonique, a trio of a Jazz nature with Gildas Boclé (double bass) and Dom Molard (percussion), a duo with Fañch Landreau (violinist), a duo with Stéphane Morvan (wooden traverse flute), performing live, improvised music for a marionette theater (‘The Dragon’s egg’) which is a show presented entirely in poetry, artistic director for the group Spontus, and (lastly) music laments from the Pays Gallo, with singer Véronique Bourjot and the group Jolie Vilaine. Yann-Fañch Perroches says of the last group that ‘The group is specialized in the repertoire of ‘Pays Gallo’ (East-Brittany) where people speak and sing in Gallo (French dialect) (but we play also a very few songs from West-Brittany in Breton language). We play for concerts only (no fest-noz or dancing). We won the ‘Golden Bogue’ in Redon in October 2000 (accompanied singing championship).’
Good music played well from a band that I wished had lasted longer.
[...] Cocktail Diatonique: Accordion based Breton music! [...]