Les Voix du Vent Avec Cordes et Piano

The title tells what’s different here for Le Vent du Nord, multi-winners of Canadian Folk Music Awards since their formation in Quebec in 2002. As the liner notes explain, the group ‘left aside their instruments… for the very first time’ to just sing, accompanied by a string quartet (about which little is said in the notes) and pianist Prud’homme. The combination effuses a sort of chamber music propriety to originals and interpretations of Québécois folk, with lyrics in French-Canadian. The tracks are gleaned in part from the two decades worth of Le Vent du Nord recordings. Fusions of folk and classical have been attempted in many parts of the world, and here as elsewhere, the classical sometimes cloaks the folk. A tendency towards overproduction and/or over-arrangement can result in cloying artifice. But at its best, the combination can inspire reverence and beauty, with all elements in balance, as they are on ‘La Mère à L’Échafaud’, with traditional lyrics and music (the latter being built on by Le Vent’s André Brunet). The vocal group harmonises resonantly and invitingly, rather like a pop brother group (André is joined in the group by his sibling Réjean).