GWENNYN
Immram.
Philippe Cousin
Here is the seventh album of Gwennyn. Five years after the release of her previous studio album, Avalon, if we except the New Andro Best of, released in 2018, here is the return of the talented singer Gwennyn with Immram.
She embarks us this time for a Celtic odyssey that leads her across an ocean of waking dreams and emotions beaten by the west winds, to the shores of the Isle of Women in the Tregor (North Brittany). A true poetic journey for which she invited the Bagad de Lann-Bihoué on several tracks. Eleven tracks are included here, most of them signed by Gwennyn with the help of her companion Patrice Marzin, as well as two other tracks Me gav hir an amzer, from the Breton canticle Karantez eus Doue and Kimiad, a text by Prosper Proux adapted nearly fifty years ago by Alan Stivell on the album Chemins de Terre.
Apart from his usual musicians - Patrice Marzin on guitars, Manu Leroy on bass, Yvon Molard on percussion, Kevin Camus on uilleann pipes and low whistle, Ronan Rouxel on violin and David Pasquet on bombard - one recognizes the touch of guitarist Soïg Sibéril on Mizioù Du.
Throughout this superb opus, Gwennyn's voice accompanies us above the cliffs and the oceans, light and airy, marrying the sound waves that she gives us to hear.
From the first to the last track, we are embarked in a journey where energy and emotion are mixed.
Undoubtedly Gwennyn carries in her a creative fire which finds its result in this small musical jewel, meeting between tradition and modern music, the magic of the arrangements of Patrice Marzin being there for much.
Immram means journey in Gaelic. And it is to a very beautiful journey that we are invited here, a journey borrowed from the liberties which we miss in these uncertain times.
If the first song Me Ivez is more or less autobiographical, in which Gwennyn sublimates her freedom as a woman, the third title War An Hent is well in the air of time, vibrant tribute to the Breton language through the Redadeg (a race for the Breton language) to which it is dedicated.
To point out Mamm Douar, the call to the mother earth, a theme dear to Celtic cultures.
Immram an album that brings a note of hope and light, the proof that life will gradually regain its rights.
Coop Breizh DB10 - www.gwennyn.bzh