Vishtèn Get Connected On Collaborative New EP

Vishtèn, those award-winning champions of Acadian heritage, have joined forces with Rowen Gallant and Jesse Périard (from much-lauded Canadian folk ensemble Ten Strings & A Goat Skin), for ‘Expansion’, the title-track off their forthcoming EP.

Scheduled for a Spring release next year, Expansion honours Vishtèn’s Pastelle LeBlanc, who tragically passed away last year, with remaining band members, twin-sister Emmanuelle LeBlanc and Pastelle’s life-partner Pascal Miousse, operating under the Vishtèn Connexions rubric, recasting in full-on collaborative mode, working with six different artists across six songs as they pay tribute to Pastelle’s legacy, while also seeking to move forward with her in spirit.

By turns, bracing, peppy, bustling and contemplative, with frenetic bowed strings, thumping bodhrán and animated acoustic strums ceding to tenderly wistful jig, this dynamic instrumental is suitably themed, celebrating life in totality, with all its attendant beauty, chaos, excitement, grief and loss.

A video for ‘Expansion’, directed by filmmaker Millefiore Clarkes, pregnant with the pastoral pleasures of dancing and weaving, germane to the playfulness and blissful essence of the accompanying music, will be released via YouTube on December 1.