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Album review
Dick Annegarn
Plouc
Paris
04/03/2005 -
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Annegarn assumes his album title Plouc (which might best be translated as ‘country bumpkin’) with equanimity, pointing out that "there’s a bit of bumpkin in all of us!" He admits his own views on rural life have changed significantly over the years, too. "In the past, every time I went off to the countryside I’d end up running home as fast as my legs would carry me! I thought I needed the noise and constant hustle and bustle of city life to fuel my inspiration. But these days, my creative urges are nourished by the natural light of the mountains and the sky. Don’t get me wrong. My new album’s not some sort of gloomy meditation on me or my moments of solitude, it’s about the new place I’ve found to live, the inspiration I draw from my day-to-day life in the lower Pyrenees. I’ve come to realise that there’s just as much poetry here as there is in Paris!"
And listeners are invited to plunge right in and share Annegarn’s new milieu on the opening track on his new album, Accordons, a joyous upbeat tribute to local village festivities animated by the Bandas (regional brass bands). On a musical level, Annegarn goes on to explore the possibilities of another winning combination, the tuba and the French horn (two instruments largely overlooked and underestimated up until now). Then, working in collaboration with Barnabé Wiorowski and Jean-Pierre Soulès, Annegarn and his accomplices transform themselves into a full orchestra (plus brass and violin section), putting on a remarkable show of innovation and, at the same time, restraint.
A second level of meaning
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Annegarn, who was born in Holland, grew up in Belgium and now lives in France, has acquired his own inimitable accent and sense of phrasing in the course of his travels. His diction – partway between "I’ve got a mouthful of madeleines" and "I articulate in the most exaggerated way" – adds a charming, quasi-surreal edge to his songs. And all the more so as in his songwriting Annegarn attaches as much importance to the sound and texture of a word as he does its meaning. His songwriting reaches new summits on Plouc with L’arborescence, a song on which the blissful conjunction of vocals and guitar knocks out a blues that would make the musicians in the Delta pale with envy. L’eau est là, another musical gem from Annegarn’s new offering, is a simple but effective ode to rain (a weather front that makes the population north of the Mediterranean gloomy and grey, but gives ample cause for celebration in the south!)
The last bluesmen of the Moroccan south
Annegarn, who has travelled far afield in the course of his career, has scaled down his roaming in recent years, giving in to fatigue. When he does travel these days, he says, it tends to be for a purpose. Last year, for instance, Annegarn headed off to Tiznit, in the south of Morocco, to record a number of Berber artists "for posterity." Unfortunately, the project did not turn out quite as expected. "The funding I got from Morocco and France ended up working against me," he says, "I was regarded with some suspicion, in fact. Artists over there have pretty much censored themselves these days. I realised they don’t sing the usual coded messages any more, the kind you have to use in oppressed societies where you say one thing but mean another." The recordings Annegarn made in Tiznit may make fascinating listening, but this has not helped him find a distributor. "The project’s been turned down several times now," he says, "despite the fact that there are two million Berber speakers in France. The problem is they’re not interested in this kind of music any more. These are the last bluesmen of the Moroccan south! Even the natives find this style of music exotic these days. The music they listen to on a daily basis now is Madonna!"
Annegarn is far from resigned to this state of affairs. Indeed, he says that if his new album, Plouc, does well in terms of record sales he will finance the release of Rways de Tiznit (already playing on his excellent website). Meanwhile, the singing Dutchman is busy preparing the second edition of his Festival du Verbe (due to be staged in June 2005) and he is also developing a website for a young freestyle rapper from Toulouse. Which just goes to show, Dick Annegarn may have discovered a new joie de vivre in the Pyrenees, but he has certainly not discovered total peace and tranquillity! God forbid!
Ludovic Basque
Translation : Julie Street
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