Well this was a head trip.
The first thing I noticed when I headed to the YouTube video for this song was that the comments were all in French.
So the moment “Au revoir la belle” opened with fiddle and handclaps, I was expecting a jaunty piece of QueTrad to come through the speakers.
Imagine my surprise then, when the song exploded into an arrangement of tin whistles, bagpipes, squeezebox and a whole rock n’ roll ensemble, complete with pounding drums.
The vocals are in French, but make no mistake about it, the song is Celtic through and through – owing far more in style to the Pogues and the Oysterband than to La Bottine Souriante.
And a damn lot of fun it is.
I’m embarrassed to say that Bodh’aktan are new to me, despite their having been on the scene for more than a decade and having earned at least two Felix nominations.
That latter part is all you really need to know to know that this is really damn good music
