At first, Le Vent du Nord sounds very much like a traditional Celtic group, but then the voices come in and we are in another world. For one thing, the singing is mostly in four-part harmony, and for another it is in French.
A quartet of musicians from Quebec, Le Vent du Nord, which appears Saturday at the Theatre Raymond Kabbaz, is probably the best-known group in a burgeoning French Canadian folk revival.
"When I was young, it was considered a shame to play this music," says Nicolas Boulerice, speaking in accented English on the phone from Montreal. "It was like, 'Woof, you play traditional music? It's weird . . . . ' But now it is becoming a la mode."
Boulerice says that all the group members are in their early 30s and that he and the guitarist, Simon Beaudry, grew up surrounded by such music.
"We were both born in traditional-music families. People were singing and dancing that traditional stuff, so we didn't learn it, we were just born in it," Boulerice says. "But we also make research for new repertoire, and Olivier [Demers], the fiddler, he composes a lot of tunes, so we have a mix of new and old."
That mix is at the core of Le Vent du Nord's approach. The group's basic instrumentation is fiddle, hurdy-gurdy, accordion and guitar, with occasional piano and bass. The overall sound can have the gentle lilt of concert ensembles such as the Chieftains, but also the flavor of crossover groups like Steeleye Span and the pioneering French group Malicorne.
"The new generation has re-appropriated this music," Boulerice says. "Taking it not as a historic thing but like something that is still in movement. Now you can have a thrash-trad band, a reggae-trad band, a pop-trad band. We can open our minds and bring what is in our own tradition but also what we like in other styles. So in the way we play the chords, you can hear we studied a little jazz, and in concert especially, we like to kick a little bit like a rock 'n' roll band."
That said, the band members, who came together in 2002, have immersed themselves in the oldest French-Canadian traditions.
Boulerice's main instrument, the hurdy-gurdy, is a medieval invention that relatively few modern-day listeners have even heard. Its French name, vielle a roue, translates roughly as "wheeled fiddle," and it consists of a wooden wheel the player turns with a crank in his right hand, which acts like a never-ending bow, while with his left hand, he pushes keys that act like a fiddler's left-hand fingers.
