Happy new year, bloavezh mat deoc’h, we’re happy to start out 2023 with a video with a very long and ghosty history, and yes, it’s quite dark and moody, but, hey! that’s also very Breton!
We hope you’ll enjoy, the sound has been remastered in that version, but the original version is to be found in B album here:
https://astrakanproject.bandcamp.com/album/astrakan-project-b
Enjoy, have a nice 2023! Simone ha Yann
Have you ever dream of a list of Breton music to listen to? Essentials that you could be introduced to ? Fascinated by breton fest-noz music and not knowing where to start from?
We’ve had the request quite often, and since we’re catching-up on all we postponed during Inês album recording and release, here it is: a WIP list of breton music that we like and that has influenced us. You can find the list on this section of tour web-site that we plan on up-dating regularly, as well as books recommended for artists, online ressources and links to the gear we use for music and video. But, without further due, let’s get in to the world of fest-noz and breton music:
Enjoy, and let us know in the comment section if you have any request or suggestion!
Links are amazon affiliated, if you decide to buy any of these based on our recommendations, please, do use our links, you will pay the exact same price, but we’ll receive a little percentage that can help us producing more music and share more useful links.
Also, this list is based on our personal musical journey, on what made a difference to us, and also on our personal tastes! This ain’t meant to be a chart, or any “ultimate” listing! Get inspired, enjoy our story sharing, but create your own story and connection with breton music.
We’ve arrived in Greece after 2 weeks travel across the Balkan region (mostly Serbia and North Macedonia) that we miss so much. It had been 2 years since we hadn’t been around, and it really feels like we’re reunited with an ambiance that is deeply part of who we are – or rather have become.
We are very happy we had the plan to travel once the album would be released. We did some little promo before our departure, and thanks to the Internet (and easy cheap sim cards!), we can easily manage the rest of it for when we’ll be back to France early November.
Our happiness comes also from a more relaxed way from our behalf to deal with the album release. It’s a true fact that with the experience, we get better at it. And I’m not necessarily referring to the contacts, or the sequence of what needs to be done. That’s the easiest part in a way.
I’m here rather referring to the emotional part of the release, how having a limited audience in a niche style affects what we can do at release time. Basically, despite of the nice support we got during the crowdfunding campaign, we didn’t have huge crowds waiting for Inês album. Also, we got amazing feedback from some media, but also plenty of no replies from radios we’ve worked with previously. From people too. Some sales in the first week, though nothing exceptional.
Honestly, it can be an artist’heart’s killer! But as I said, we now plan for it, and planning for what we most love in the world *travelling* certainly smooths all the mixed feelings we experience. And don’t get us wrong! We do enjoy every bit of this amazing project, all is part of the game, it’s just music after-all, isn’t it? And as years pass by we do improve at staying motivated and grateful no matter what.
http://www.astrakanproject.bandcamp.com/album/in-s
§ Simone.
Here are 4 new studio tracks you may download for free! (but you can donate bellow 🙂
Just one click on the cover…
>Within the Circle – Astrakan Project<
If you want other formats than mp3, FLAC , ALAC & so, you can go to our >Bandcamp page< and download it from there.
What are those new songs about? Hear them first, tell us what they inspire you, in the meantime we’ll make a small video with a lot of insights about this new recording.
And, once you’ve enjoyed them, shared them, heard them many times, you may support us in many ways…
As we use a computer with pre-recorded loops on stage (this post), we realised that we needed (and that we still need !) to find the right balance between those two following extreme situations:
I must say that when I had started loop programming, we were first very close to the A-statement. Later on, as I was thinking that my programming skills and experience were increasing, we got very close to the B-statement…
The kind of music we would like to play on stage is somewhere in-between. A-statement may not be sufficient since we are in most cases only two musicians on stage (Voice and stringed instrument, except when we have guests), whereas B gives the feeling that we are not really playing but that the laptop is playing for us. Some would call this “Karaoke” !
So, we’re going back to A, but not as close as in the beginning, loops mostly consisting in drones and light rhythms. We do hope we’re on the way to find the right balance !
[ yann ]
We setted up the release day for… the day after tomorrow, which means, within 2 days. In a way, we’ll be happy to be Sunday !
As we already mentioned, after long discussions, we decided to sell it for 12 euros (that’s about $15.50), including shipping costs… But what is “a” right price ?
The question is more complex than it looks at first sight. When we searched around the web, some advices were not to sell it for more than established artists. We’re not established artists. When we refer to French albums’ prices, it doesn’t seem to function that way, at least for physical CDs. Music produced by small labels tend to be much more expensive (too expensive? we’re talking about at least 20€ / $25) than mainstream records.
Where does the value of the music we play come from ? Is it about the value we think it has ? Is it about the value other people would give to it ?
We’re not planning to really earn any money directly from the sales, even if we hope our music would spread enough to get more venues. Still, we have to get at least a part of the money we invested to get it manufactured, and anyone can guess that for small quantities like ours, it gets the price per CD much higher. We’re far from talking about refunding the rest of the material, not mentioning any salary.
So far, we questioned as many people as we could about the price, and although we didn’t get any “that’s really too expensive for a self-produced album”. We could have chosen a “pay what you want” option. We could. Maybe we don’t feel yet confident enough in the value people would give to our music ? In a way we also consider that people are not only “buying” a CD from us, they’re supporting our project on a much longer term.
If you really think “that’s really too expensive”, let us know why…
§ Simone
Only two weeks left before the actual release. We’ve almost made our mind to sell the album online via Bandcamp. It has many advantages, including that those following us rather via facebook will also be able to get it directly from there.
We’re right now preparing a fun promotional video, which will include a small contest
In the meantime, here’s a taste of what it will sound like :
It’s called “tri martolod an oriant”, based on traditional tune and lyrics from Brittany, quite famous under the title “tri martolod yaouank” (3 young sailors). Share it, comment it, give feedback…
Our dead-line to send the album to the factory was August, the 15th… and we’re quite happy as we are realizing we’ll be able to make it on time.
A small tour within what we’ve been busy with lately ? We’re done with anything recording-related, but there’s still some work to be done.
Yann is mainly spending his days mixing and mastering. We bought some (cheap) monitoring speakers, ans luckily our small village in Brittany is far more quite than Istanbul.
Then we’re regularly making copies to listen to it there and there, in the car, at friends place, on bad and good sound systems – this help us to check out the sound quality, but also to fine-tune arrangements.
While listening, we’re also trying to get the final tracks’ order, and it’s not an easy task. Of course, we do love any of the tunes that we recorded. But we love them for may different reasons. Some of them because of the tune, other might be because of the particular moment we started to play it… Not all these reasons are very “musical” ones. For labelled artists, an artistic director or some professional like that could help or advice. In our case we really need to step back and be as neutral as we can towards our music – but on the other hand we keep control on our work.
And at the same time, I’m working on the cover, checking the printing margins, colours, contrast, but also the content and spelling. I’m quite happy as all this is also on its way.
But as always, fine-tuning may take more time than expected, so… we’re trying to keep focused!
A bar ? A hotel ? Nope, this is the kind of places we search for live music in Kosovo. Along road M2 between Pristine and Ferizai, you may find many of them, they sometimes have a sign “live music”.
Here’s a very short video, the sound is terrific, but it shall give you an idea of the place.
The clarinettist is Rexhe Baba, when we first met in 2007, we were really impressed by his style, his freedom to ignore the rules… and his craziness !
Such places, as far as we know, are opened at night everyday, without entrance fee, drinks are more expensive than in standard cafes but still affordable. They hire a couple of singers, at least 2, sometimes up to 5 or 6, that will perform one after each other with the same band. The band can be very “cheap” and consist of a single synthesizer player, but we look for places with at least 3 or 4 musicians, although, synthesizer is the base.
On the video, you can see a bank note (50 Euros !!!) hold with the clarinet, it’s a way to request a particular song and to dedicate it to someone. The singer is holding the piece of paper with the message and will read it between two songs. Of course, more famous musicians/singers will get more requests. At the end of the evening, the money is then divided between everyone on stage.
We’ve been travelling back to Brittany during the last days, a great road-trip, a good and inspirational break before we jump back into the album – we have great hopes we can finish it and send it to the factory by mid-august.
In the meantime, here are some pics from our trip that we’re happy to share with you…
In Northern Greece, not very far from Kavala, we met an amazing lyra player.
We generally speaking love Lyras, Yann was really pleased to give it a try.
We also travelled threw Kosovo…
What’s this ? A live music place… of course we did some videos, give us a couple of days to pick up one and you’ll have an idea of the crazy sound from Kosovo.
We also searched for last CD’s releases in the Balkans, here is our favourite CD dealer from Priština’s market.
And also in Montenegro, here in the small town of Berane.
Thanks to her kindness we discovered Gusle, a traditional string instrument from Montenegro with a really amazing and deep sound. And… it’s a single string instrument! We’ll try to find some samples very soon.
. astrakan project . 