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LE GOP! "The Bourree" Buda Musique 822792

Take the vielle a roué that quintessentially Central French instrument, add a diatonic accordion, another quintessentially French instrument, and add a bass 'n' drum backbeat. Toss in some fiddle and guitar and a few megavolts of raw energetic, frenetic, enthusiastic joie de vivre and what do you get? You get Le Gop! (who just wouldn't be the same without that exclamation mark, would they?

French folk-rockers extrordinnaires, this group knows how to take a traditional Berry or Auvergne theme and lay into it, batter it about a bit, but still leave it structurally sound and intact. The influences are clear, the modernity obvious, the sheer enjoyment of their playing inescapable. By keeping at their core a solid basis of the tradition, the surrounding experimentation allows this core to be taken to a much wider audience, without sacrificing too much of the original material in the process.

To be fair, you can't really do justice to these arrangements by sitting down and trying to over-analyse them. Rather, put it onto the car system when you're heading down the fast lane, or just turn up the volume, to hell with the neighbours and their anti social behaviour orders - invite them round and party!.

Formidable.

Gordon Potter

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