GWENDAL

— First review of this album —

With this 1989 release, GWENDAL, shrunken to a quartet, eschewed most of their jazzy leanings in favor of a slick expose of their Celtic roots. While quality had often been at issue in the early years, it was reigned in by the limitations of running time, which was relaxed by the CD era. When you become so familiar and facile with an activity, you might say that you can perform it in your sleep, and that seems like what GWENDAL is doing here. Unfortunately, I am listening to it while awake.

Luckily the playing is spirited for the spread of tracks 3 to 6. Though the "Uilean Mandinga" pair sounds like it could have been lifted from one of those 1990s MIKE OLDFIELD albums like "Tr3s Lunas", I'll gladly take a mediocre Oldfield at this juncture. "Colombaneon" is probably the high point, with an adept and enthusiastic blend of flute and percussion. After this it's all pretty much the stuff that any pan Celtic rock group could do but many fewer should, with the exception of the closer which sounds like a B track from the superior predecessor "Danse la Musique".

Well, at least the cover is pastoral. From this point, GWENDAL's output dwindled to a trickle before fizzling. Clearly out of ideas and probably in the midst of raising children, they gave way to the oncoming onslaught of morbid Celtic extravaganzas that had every tattooed punk professing to having been fans of the style all along.

— First review of this album —

I probably shouldn't say this right now, but don't believe everything you read, especially if it's exactly what you want to believe; there is probably another side. From the album title, the cover (well, at least the pecs and abs are worth displaying) , the year of release, the awareness that it was followed by the meh "Glen River", and a few terse reviews I have read, I was expecting some sort of disco or new romantic extraction by the Celtic roots. It's true this is a less "pure" take on the rarefied Breton experience but it's more via a bass-driven new age sheen, with the usual jazzy overtones on call. As such, "Danse La Musique", apart from a few throwaway trad-ish numbers, is yet another easily embraced surprise.

Sometimes the rocked up elements are a bit overstated and a lot over produced, such as in "Celtic Break", and the woodwind excursions do draw comparisons to the likes of TIM WEISBERG (with and without DAN FOGELBERG) as well as MONTREUX, SHADOWFAX and a few other Wyndham Hill acts, but mostly that's in a good way. It's hard to harshly judge the distinction of the MOTIS-like title track, with suave vocals, the first on any of their major releases, by guitarist Bertrand Binet, and the delicacy of the longest cut, "Aurore Boreale".

I imagine that Gwendal's considerable peak popularity might have largely diffused by this time, and perhaps they would have been better served to bow out right after, rather than dance their way through a few more barely and poorly received projects.

When the worst thing a grumbly critic can say about a prog folk album from 1983 is that it sounds dated, well, then said critic should go back to cynic school. On this 5th offering, instrumental Celtic rockers GWENDAL seem to have eschewed any early 1980s trappings and doubled down on many of the more progressive and less excessive aspects of the prior decade, as if they the very concept of new wave music was unfathomable. Influences such as JETHRO TULL, JEAN LUC PONTY, ALAN STIVELL, even the MAHIVISHNU ORCHESTRA are all whipped up into a low froth solution, with nary a jig or overdone motif in earshot. Whereas a couple of the prior releases were well played and sufficient in their way, this is the first with tracks that are quite astonishing by any evaluation, in particular the two "epics". I would have loved to have seen them live around this time, but unfortunately that locomotive has left la gare.

Perhaps the GWENDAL equivalent of MALICORNE's "Almanach" in terms of venerability, "Les Mouettes s'Battent" sees the group fully embrace the inclinations that would make them singularly irritating, specifically the overuse of ostinatos in an effort to extract significance, and wrapping a 4 to 7 minute track around them. What saves, justifies, and even elevates this particular release is the nature of the arrangements that lasso those obstinate figures, effortlessly whipping jazz, reggae, and hard rock into the trad Celtic mix, even if I've never understood the point of live drum solos longer than 15 seconds. While I think GWENDAL would have been far more effective if the group had any personnel who could or would sing, I can't rebuff the mesmerizing escalation of the title cut, the audacity of "Le Reggae gai de Gueret", the pastoral grace of "My Love is a Band Boy", and the occasionally overdone sprawl of "Je pars a Noyac" which leaves little doubt of Youenn Le Berre's leadership through this phase. You can almost see and hear the seagulls fighting over the delectable scraps strewn about here with near joyous abandon.

It was past the halfway point of the decade of the mandatory side long suite and still nothing of the sort from GWENDAL. This must have precipitated quite the discussion amongst the band members, who clearly didn't have anything in the can to support an "epic or bust" doctrine. But hey, with most of these samey jigs and reels, and with maybe a bit less on the jazz front, no listener would be able to tell if we started off with something a bit more creative and then interlaced an odd half dozen rejects from the first 2 albums, giving it an overarching grandiose name like "Mon Joly Scooter", which segues flawlessly into my other point: virtually none of the shorter tracks, whether within or without this unambiguously unambitious concoction, even raises its shackles let alone snips them. Thankfully a few re-interpretations of standards like "Cam Ye all Frae France" and "Butterfly" are welcome even if they would have been little more than reinforced padding on the group's previous album, from which "A vos desirs" represents a couple of missed steps down the evolutionary ladder.

In the mere year that divided GWENDAL's first 2 self titled albums, now conveniently named for their opening tracks, Youenn Leberre's interests beyond trad folk abandoned their covert phase clearly and with occasional verve.

A more lucid representation of the nascent jazzy folk of this instrumental Breton group, this manages to skirt the over indulgences to follow. Even the seemingly mundane "Joe Cant's Reel" signals evolution on the home stretch, and, if "Benoit", "Galway Bay", and "Da Scalloway Lasses" are still overly familiar, "Galway Hills" and its funky rhythms and bombarde illuminates the curvy path to later world music. Even more compelling are "Rue de Petit Musc", "Crystal Palace" and the 7 minute "Douze Degres" which, once it really gets going, conjures a feral saxophone attack a la Lizard era Crimson meets obscure compatriots TI JAZ, in the best ways.

Even at this relatively late stage in the 1960s/70s Breton folk revival, GWENDAL's second album forges an identity that acknowledges the past while blazing ahead.

While Breton instrumentalists GWENDAL eventually became best known for their blend of Celtic folk and jazz, this quality is barely evident on their debut, which in re-releases was named after the first track. This is mostly a series of traditional jigs, reels and slow airs propelled by flute and violin, inasmuch as they are propelled at all. By this time ALAN STIVELL and TRI YANN had already issued seminal releases from this neighborhood, and CLANNAD and HORSLIPS had served notice from the northern extremes of the British Isles.

GWENDAL tries to sound spirited, and really, with the uptempo cadences and flutes how could one not at least partially succeed. Unfortunately, apart from the skirt lifting flourishes of "An Dro Nevez" and the reflective wonder of O'Carolan's "Planxty Burke", this mostly colours within the lines, like early GRYPHON on diluted uppers. Elsewhere, when they do cut loose, it brings to mind their overindulgences with minimalism which would mar later releases ("Deu tu Ganeme"), while numerous other tunes offer fumes that never quite ignite ("Patrick's Day"), firmly shackled by the confines of numerous setlists of Sunday afternoon seisuns. That said, the dispiritedly named closer "Irish Song" would raise even the differently abled out of their seated prisons if only for 3 minutes.

While I may take issue with later Gwendal and their tendency to repeat themselves more than a radish in a GERD sufferer, their first album is mostly just a "We better throw our hat in the Claddagh ring before it's too late" proposition, and is thus weak in a different but just as valid way.