French hurdy-gurdy player Yann Gourdon and his friends started out playing
a variation on medieval Celtic folk.
Toad was a trio with
Pierre-Vincent Fortunier on bagpipe and violin
and Guilhem Lacroux on guitar that
reimagined medieval and Renaissance folk dances on
Toad (2009), aka "La Novia 001",
and
Toad II (2011), aka "La Novia 003", both containing
bourrees, polkas, marches, mazurkas, waltzes, etc.
The same concept permeates Gourdon recordings with other friends:
Duo PuechGourdon (2010), aka "La Novia 002", with
Jacques Puech on vocals and bagpipe,
and
Trio Puech-Gourdon-Bremaud (Standard InFi, 2010),
that adds Basile Bremaud on violin.
The latter is the first attempt at abstracting Celtic jigs via droning and
minimalist repetition. It contains two
20-minute pieces, Eron Liech and Tant Pire.
It was reissued with an art booklet in 2012, aka "La Novia 004", and adding the
(vastly inferior) 18-minute La Simplette.
Gourdon also played in Jericho with vocalist Clement Gauthier, bagpipe player Jacques Puech and banjo player Antoine Cognet, a group first documented on Jericho I (2012), aka "La Novia 007", and Jericho II (2016), aka "La Novia 011".
The same style of "abstract Celtic folk" was pursued by La Baracande, a quartet with Gourdon, Pierre Vincent Fortunier on bagpipes, Guilhem Lacroux on guitar, and Basile Bremaud on violin that debuted with
La Baracande (2013), aka "La Novia 008", containing the first versions
of some of their "pieces de resistance":
La Haut la Haut Dedans la Tour (9:52), which is at the same time
a frantically rhythmic dance and a plaintive medieval chanson,
Le Vingt-Cinq Du Mois D'Avril (14:33) and the
ethereal La Jeune Sylvie (12:04).
Gourdon's solo album Drone Sweet Drone (october 2013 - february 2014) documents a 40-minute performance (BAB Octobre 2013) inspired by
Pauline Oliveros and
LaMonte Young.
Yann Gourdon also formed the trio France with bassist Jeremie Sauvage and drummer Mathieu Tilly, which, being fronted by a hurdy gurdy, felt almost like a sarcastic take on the power-trio of rock music. Their one-hour live improvisation of Meltdown Of Planet Earth (2014) fully embraced the merging of droning minimalism and Celtic folk yielding something in between metronomic trance and intoxicated sabbath dance that clearly could go on forever.
Toad's Toad III (2014), aka "La Novia 005", was influenced by France and moved towards abstract improvised medleys of medieval forms: the 16-minute Marche de Noce de Chabaud/ Marche de Noce de Roussel/ Bouree de l'Anglars and the 19-minute Bourree de l'Arabe/ Bouree de Mouret/ Marche de l'Arabe. The latter ends in dissonant droning Tony Conrad-esque territory.
The 48-minute tour de force of Le Verdouble (2015) is performed by the hurdy-gurdy duo of Yann Gourdon and Yvan Etienne.
Mostla (2015) is a compilation of various recordings by the collective and also includes a 20-minute live performance of April 2014.
Violoneuses (2015) documents a duet between Perrine Bourel and Mana Serrano, both on violin and chanting.
The 39-minute piece of Puech Gourdon Bremaud (2016), aka "La Novia 010",
is festive and noisy, with the trio hysterically strumming and banging away.
The pieces of the first La Baracande album were given a more imposing
on two albums recorded in January 2016:
La Haut la Haut Dedans la Tour
and
a 14-minute version of Le Vingt-Cinq Du Mois D'Avril (now turned into
an almost Arabic litany over strident drones) on
La Baracande II (jan 2016 - jan 2017), aka "La Novia 013",
and
La Jeune Sylvie (now an 18-minute version enhanced with cosmic effects)
on La Baracande III (jan 2016 - mar 2017), aka "La Novia 014", which
also includes the 22-minute
La Complainte de Pyrame et Thisbee, characterized by
sideral drones and theatral chanting.
La Cleda (jan 2016 - 2017), recorded by the quartet of Yann Gourdon, Basile Bremaud, Mateu Baudoin and Nicolas Rouzier, contained the usual assortment of marches, bourrees, vespers, mazurkas, etc.
Duo PuechGourdon (2017), aka "La Novia 015", was another duet between Gourdon and Puech, a return to the medleys of marches, bourrees, mazurkas, etc.
Jacques Puech (playing also glass harmonica, shrutti box, Farfisa organ) and guitarist Guilhem Lacroux (playing also a synth) recorded Faune (sep 2016 - 2017).
Meanwhile, France returned with the 50-minute improvisation Occitania (2017), which features a more violent crescendo,
the Live a Metamorfosi 2019 (2017), which contains a 33-minute live performance of 2015 (despite the misleading title), and
the 78-minute piece of A La Recherche De La Flexitude Du Temps (2018),
a somnolent version of the same kind of trance.
And Toad returned with
Toad IV (feb 2017 - 2018), aka "La Novia 018", which contains
two 20-minute compositions: the
distorted and percussive instrumental bacchanal La Marchienne
and the denser hypnosis of La Quille.
Nuit de Noces (june 2019 - 2020) contains three live Toad performances.
Gourdon Gauthier Feraud (2019) documents a collaboration among Yann Gourdon, Clement Gauthier and Olivier Feraud.
2020 was the year of the covid pandemic but was also the year of the La Novia
collective. Their major phase began with a 2019 recording of
Terry Riley's In C, both in acoustic and electric versions.
Then in 2020 Gourdon's groups produced a number of important recordings.
France came out with
the 33-minute piece of Far Out Far West (2020), which had
a much bigger emotional impact than previous France pieces because of
more propulsive tribal drumming and louder, fuller droning and vocal effects,
sounding like a non-neurotic version of
the Velvet Underground's Sister Ray.
Jericho's De Dreit Nien (2020) contains three lenthy pieces:
Litanie / Lo mestre (18:36), a quiet chant that merges ancient Buddhist and Christian sacred chanting with a coda of merry dancing;
Revenant de noces / Les Quatre Salaisons / La Blanche Biche / Paloma / Trois mariniers (29:39), a multi-movement that transitions from fast-paced medieval dance to ecstatic hymn,
and
Farai un Vers / Marche / Tournadre un et Deux / Planh de la Madalena (17:16), which ends with the most frantic whirling romp of their career.
The La Novia collective released three albums.
The 56-minute piece of Maintes Fois (june 2019 - 2020) is their
masterpiece, a colossal, almost symphonic blend of
Tibetan chanting, LaMonte Young-ian droning minimalism,
shamanic psychedelia, tribal drumming, and so on that provisionally peaks in
a dissonant cacophony of strings. At 17:30
it resumes like a Tibetan fanfare which soons becomes a stately dense metronomic "om".
The cacophony of bagpipe and percussive sounds gets louder and faster, drowning the chant.
An epileptic crescendo, a sort of demonic dance, eventually leads to the
droning agony of the end.
The music was performed by
Gourdon,
guitarist Guilhem Lacroux,
violinists Perrine Bourel and Basile Bremaux,
banjo player Antoine Cognet,
hurdy-gurdy player Yvan Etienne,
bagpipe player Pierre-Vincent Fortunier
and singer Clement Gauthier.
Le Temps Tranquille (2020) features
female wordless singer Noellie Nioulou in several "songs":
Tranquille Cadavre (9:51), another "abstraction" of Celtic folk,
and especially
Miserere Tuorum (12:55), her ghostly lamentation towering
over dissonant chamber music before the coda of otherwordly voices.
Gauthier chants over brutal drumming in Laquan son Passat li Giure (8:23), and the album ends with
the symphonic crescendo of vocal invocations of L'Autre Jour en me Promenant (8:35).
The 49-minute piece of Au Seuil du Vent (2020), performed by the quartet of Yann Gourdon, Guilhem Lacroux, Perrine Bourel and Clement Gauthier,
begins as a lake of gentle guitar tinkling, like John Fahey rehearsing in a room full of echoes, then turns into an ominous rumble. Then fluctuations emerge out of the thick, each one in a different timbre, and they divaricate while still interacting, one cello-like, one siren-like, one a somnolent drone, one tolling like a bell. Then they pause in quasi-silence, and the last ten minutes are
a barely audible chatter.
Concert au Satellite (2020) is a split double-cassette album that contains a 47-minute performance by Yann Gourdon.
Le Soleil ni Meme la Lune (2021) documents a duet between violinist Perrine Bourel and Jacques Puech.
La Langue de l'Ophiolite (2021) documents a duet between Yann Gourdon and guitarist Filipe Felizardo.
Yann Gourdon (march 2020 - 2021) contains a 39-minute hurdy-gurdy solo of fibrillating minimalism a` la Terry Riley's Persian Surgery Dervishes that slowly decays and dissolves in a static drone, which in turn soars slowly to become a trombone-like roar.
