An embarrassment of riches for Celtic and acoustic music lovers
 LONG established as one of Scotland’s finest and funkiest folk-fusion outfits, the Isle of Skye-based sextet the Peatbog Faeries are known for their wickedly potent set-list.
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VANCOUVER – They are dates written into almost 50,000 people’s calendars every year – the July weekend of the Vancouver Folk Music Festival.
This year, the 33rd annual, the festival runs from July 16-18 at Jericho Beach Park on Vancouver’s west side.
These festival folks are anticipating time to relax in a friendly atmosphere, connect with friends and, most importantly, hear some great music.
Year-after-year, the festival delivers the kind of experience that makes for great memories: that one artist or song that made you shiver or jump to your feet; that moment when the sun was setting, the ocean breeze was wafting and a lilting tune wended through the air and you thought – “perfect.”
The year’s festival is full of promise for some wonderful new memories. With artists and groups from some 20 countries converging on the park, the musical ingredients are certainly there. In store is an embarrassment of riches for lovers of the Celtic and acoustic music traditions.
Long established as one of Scotland’s finest and funkiest folk-fusion outfits, the Isle of Skye-based sextet the Peatbog Faeries are known for their wickedly potent set-list.
They’ve won the Scots Trad band award twice – no mean feat. Their players boast an impressive collective pedigree that includes past or present membership in top Scottish acts such as Session A9, Croft No. Five and La Boum.
The Faeries take pipe and fiddle tunes and pair them with jazz, Latin, African, east European and reggae styles – the whole mix fuelled by heavyweight, cutting-edge dance grooves. It’s a pretty spicy mixture, yet their main influence remains traditional Celtic music.
The band counts among their greatest influences the music of legendary groups like Silly Wizard, Capercaillie and Shooglenifty. With those roots, they set out on their own glorious musical experiment.
Their unique sound is created through a mix of programmed effects and traditional Celtic arrangements, played on bagpipes, fiddles, and whistles. Their no-holds-barred approach takes extreme delight in testing the boundaries, and audiences are simply caught up in their danceable musical maelstrom.
From this side of the Atlantic, the four women of Gadelle share a few of the same musical sensibilities, yet offer a very different take and experience. They play traditional Acadian music, tunes passed down from their French forefathers, people like Eddy Arsenault and Alyre Gallant and other musical mentors from past generations.
Gadelle’s music is full of lively riffs, foot percussion and step-dances played on piano, accordion, mandolin and fiddle. Two of the group’s members cut their musical teeth in the seminal Acadian group Barachois. The other two come from the next generation of traditional music players from PEI’s Evangeline region.
They take their name from an old Acadian word meaning “wild berries,” but it also connotes a feisty female. Together they’re adding a lot of spice to a revered tradition.
From this side of Atlantic Canada, Quebec group Mauvais Sort adds even more great tradition-based music into the festival mix. Their name translates to something like “spell-binding,” and their music pretty much does exactly that.
The band mixes modern arrangements of old-time folk music together: traditional lyrics are set to contemporary compositions or original stories put together with familiar folk rhythms. The result is a re-invented and re-invigorated Quebecois music tradition. With foot percussion and a squeeze box, fiddle and guitar in their hands, all you need to do is show up to be guaranteed a good time.
These three bands join over 60 other artists and groups performing at the festival this year. The stunning diversity offers both the familiar along with new sounds to discover – so get out your pencil and mark July 16-18 in your calendar! Go to www.thefestival.bc.ca for more information.
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