SEPTEMBRE BLEU

In the late 1980s "new age" music peaked in popularity. While this is not to suggest huge dot com styled profits for record companies, many 30 something yuppies began to at least reflect about being reflective in their lives for the first time, and new age music seemed to offer the possibility without having to sleep in the pews on Sunday. With drum machines and 12 inch dance remixes all the rage at the time, it is not hard to understand the appeal of gentle, generally melodic if sometimes simplistic music.

Progressive and Celtic artists discovered a credible way to reinvent themselves without being accused of selling out. The phenomenon touched down in Brittany as well, and this may be Dan Ar Braz' closest approximation to the genre. He still cooks on his electric guitar in "The Lonely Kid on the Shore", while the influence of Andy Latimer rings out in the lovingly languid "L'eau de l'âme", and "Mots de Sable" plays acoustic guitars off Benoit Widemann's tasteful piano rolls so well that it's not necessary to categorize the result. But "Mariage au Board de Mer", "De la Presqu'Île aux Îles", and "Blue in Eau Claire" seem altogether too syrupy thanks in part to standard lite jazzy electric piano and guitar.

Unless you have a penchant for VERY gentle instrumental music, you would probably do best to choose a different Ar Braz album as an introduction, as "Septembre Bleu" does not qualify as an august performance.