Musicians’ Diary

Our thoughts, our creative steps, our everyday questioning about being musicians, emerging ideas & projects… and basically anything we want to share !
Musicians' Diary, Sound & Video

Barzh an Ifern with Gwendal Moele

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Last time we were in the UK, we took the chance to record a new version of Barzh an Ifern with Gwendal Moele that we had met there a couple of months ago – and we are delighted with that version that we made available for download here – beware! You should feel like starting dancing! (it’s a download on pay-what-you-want, if you’re broken at the moment, enter “0”!). We can’t say how much we love this version that has this wild ambiance you find in Kan ha Diskan (traditional way of singing for dance in Brittany, with 2 singers, originally a-capela)

In the meantime, Yann also remastered our previous EP Within The Circle (to which we indeed added Barz an Ifern) – if you have bought it already, please, just up-date your version and download it for free – just enter “0” for the amount!

And to remember where it started from, here is the video from our gig together in Ipswich in October

Musicians' Diary, Sound & Video

Bloavezh Mat – Happy new year message

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Normally in Brittany, it is possible, acceptable, usual to wish “happy new year”… until the 31st of January! But since we have many other things – including music and video – to share in the up-coming days, we’ll start with a short message – and a cool new inside!

§ Yann & Simone

Musicians' Diary, Sound & Video

Sales VS Creativity

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It’s always about the same. We released last album 2 months ago, we’re still in the middle of promoting, and actually we should even be doing more in that direction – by more, I mean do more follow up, check if it has been received, if it will be published/played/reviewed.

I should also put more effort on putting together next gigs & tour. Not that I’m not putting any effort, but basically I should be spending more than half of my days on the phone. But guess what? It’s not my thing. Neither Yann’s.

And things got worst when we get ideas for new songs coming in and chasing us even at night! Not big projects as such, not planned for any album (but who knows?), but mostly side-projects that we’d love to work on, just to see what happens, just to experiment and have fun. And well, since last January 2014 when we started to work on the album, we got a lot of these “let’s take a note and come back to it after the album’s release”.

In other words, I don’t know how that happen, but we already have loads of work in progress!

In the meantime, I pushing myself hard to keep on trying to get new gigs, it’s probably a matter of balance… but I love so much more to bring new ideas to life!

§ Simone

 

Musicians' Diary, Pics on Tour

Promo time for album B!

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We are really lucky we’ve been hosted by many nice people to promote our new album – it’s always a great chance to get our music out into the world while meeting very nice people at our interviews.

We’ve been to local radio Arvorig FM – a 100% in Breton language radio. (you can stream it online!)

Astrakan Project ba' Arvorig FM radio
@Arvorig FM – a 100% Breton radio with Pauline Daniel

We’ve also been to France Bleu Breizh Izel (local branch of the national radio) where we recorded two shows, one in Breton and one bilingual – they should be on air this week, watch out our facebook page to get notified.

Radio RBI Culture Breizh with Clément Soubigou
Recording Culture Breizh show with Clément Soubigou in Quimper

And also we played already 2 show-cases, one in Brest at the book & music shop l’Oreille KC:

And another in Morlaix today, again at a book & music shop called Dialogues:

 

So… all is well, and our little album is little by little getting to get heard in many places around Brittany. 🙂 But there is still more to come!

§ Simone

DIY Album, Musicians' Diary

Celebration time! We’re featured in fRoots’s album choices again!

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It’s a great honour not only to get a really good review in fRoots current issue (available from today for subscribers, on sale on the 20th), but also we got chose among “album choices of the month playlist”

fRoots review on Astrakan Project B

 

The review for our first album in 2013 came like a surprise, we had never played in the UK, were not distributed, had got actually absolutely no review in France, it felt really like a recognition for us. For our album B, we weren’t sure fRoots would like it, it’s much darker, and rock. Yet they still recognized that it is nothing but 100% traditional Breton music, and this is truly a very nice surprise again!

 

 

DIY Album, Musicians' Diary

I’ll be waiting…

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Since last album, I had forgotten this odd “in-between” time after the album’s release. The time it takes to go from “the release” to “what’s next”.

Since the album’s release then, a couple of fans bought it straight away,  fans that follow us regularly, that were waiting for it- you’re probably among them: big thank you! :). It’s a big reward when the first orders come in. (and a relieve also, let’s be honest !!! )

songlines 4 stars review
Our first album’s review in Songlines magazine in 2013

In the meantime also, we keep sending albums+press reviews to magazines and radios, although net-works can be powerful, traditional media have their audience for which they will select the music they think they will like. And from previous experiences we know how it brought attention from people that now follow us on a regular basis. Because this is the concrete real outcome of a good review, it isn’t about praising our musicians’ ego with nice and pleasant words. It really can help to spread the word around our project, and make it successful, help to touch more people and also be a plus when it comes to book new gigs and concerts.

Being aware of that brings a tiny bit of pressure.

What if they don’t like it? What if they don’t play it?

And there is also something we all know, nowadays, everything goes pretty fast. In the case of radios, either our music will get played straight away, either it will never be. All of this has a direct crucial impact on the music we might or might not be able to create and play in the up-coming month. Not that we would stop playing music!!! 😀 But we have the intuition that a slightly bigger audience would inspire us quite a few new cool projects!

So… we’re waiting…

§ Simone

astrakan breton world music on facebook

Musicians' Diary

Astrakan Project – B

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Astrakan Project – B

The first review from our album is out, and we’re pretty sure it will bring us loads success! If you have time to read it carefully, you’ll probably find out a few things about our music – just like we did. Yes! Believe it or not, it feels odd, but it’s as if the reviewer knew more about us than we do… 😉

Santa Sangre's avatarSanta Sangre

Not the original cover of the album Not the original cover of the album

[Reviewed by Peter Marks]

Brittany is a region of France which thanks to Astrakan Project, I have now researched in depth. I’ll give you the bare bones description: five regions, two native dialects and more history across it’s territory than my own country could ever hope to attain. Nearly everyone in the ancient world passed through, from the Romans to tribes and clans so obscure that time has erased all traces of them. Almost. For their second album, Simone Alves and Yann Gouvril have tracked down some truly remarkable songs from ages long gone, gilding them with music which only they could make. The level of accomplishment is high, the benchmarks have been exceeded and in their place new ones have been born.

This pair have, since their inception, continually striven to deliver as they say “music from beyond our world” and continue…

View original post 472 more words

Musicians' Diary, Pics on Tour

Greetings from England !

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So, we’ve arrived in England last Friday, and we had an “acoustic rehearsal” in Hadleigh (Suffolk), and, well, it still sounds good! (this video has been posted on Facebook, but you still can access it)

Astrakan Project acoustic 1932 in Hadleigh Folk Club

… and in London, we performed with other bands from Brittany. We’ll soon have some pictures and even some video, and it was nice to see again Urban Kelt lovely team.

Simone Alves & Urban Kelt Bunney
Happy to see Bunney from Urban Kelt again!

We also had the great pleasure to be at BBC Cambridge for a lovely interview with Sue Marchant, you can stream it here until the 11/10/2014 (we appear around 10 minutes at the beginning!)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0273vst

Astrakan Project BBC Cambridge Sue Marchant
Simone & lovely Sue Marchant – you can’t say they don’t seem to have fun!
BBC Cambridge Sue Marchant
Yann & Simone by Sue Marchant

What’s up for today? Yann is practising Irish tunes on this rainy day (well, yes, it’s raining!)

Last but not least… we have our albums. Well, not all of them, the promotional edition only, so we can keep on getting ready for the release…[drum rolls!] … October the 23rd for New Moon! We are very happy with the way the artwork artwork came through the manufacturing process, the quality is really lovely, we definitely made the right factory choice + they are super nice and supportive with us!

Thank you all for your lovely support !

§ Simone

Musicians' Diary, Pics on Tour

Our music through the eyes of an Angel

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What we love about our musician’s life is the amazing people we get to meet. Last July in Portugal we met a very sweet photographer, a lovely person, the kind of person anyone loves at first sight. Only when we came back we realised she was also such a talented photographer…

 

It was breathtaking to discover her amazing work. We had never imagine someone would so powerfully translate our rough music threw pictures. It almost felt like someone had captured our souls and spirit and put it into a picture everyone could see.

Like the idea we have from our music, it’s not sweet or pleasant in the way you would expect it. We’re blessed we can use Maria João Arcanjo’s amazing pictures on next album cover! We can’t wait to see it!

Like her page and find out about her amazing work here: http://www.facebook.com/MariaJoaoArcanjoPhotography (and you may share from there)

PS: copyright Maria João Arcanjo – all rights reserved: None of my images should be reproduced or used,electronically or printed, in its all or partially, without my written consent. NO DOWNLOADS. But you can SHARE them within facebook.