Kristen Nogues - Marc'h Guez

Souffle Continu Records - LP

France, 2023

Folk / Ambient / Breton

Can't stress enough the importance of such a reissue. Not only is it the best folk LP from Brittany I know - and probably from France (in mine humble opinion) - but it's also cruelly little known (out to Julien Tiné for introducing this record to me a long time ago, one of the very few records that never left my collection). Led by Kristen Noguès's Celtic harp and fragile voice, Marc'h Guez is an intimate odyssey, a secret window on the Breton folk resurgence scene in the second half of the 20th Century.

And it is precisely this intimate aspect of Noguès' music that give the LP such an outstanding patina: from the very first seconds of the opening track, on which we hear the sound of someone opening a door, footsteps, and eventually the closing of that door, it always fells as if Kristen Noguès is inviting me to sit at her table, by the warmth of an open fire, to play me age-old songs from her country, Brittany.

That's the reason why Kristen Noguès has maybe much to do with Alice Coltrane, and not because they both adored harp: both musicians have that magical ability to turn the listener into a welcomed guest, chanting songs that feel familiar because they sound both intimate and universal, thousands years old and from the 1970's all at once... Can't imagine facing another winter without this record in my life. (M/M - wholesale: shops, contact us)