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You’re lost in an infinite forest on the European mainland in medieval times, and hear music coming through the trees.
The music you hear is Perceval. That’s the feeling from listening to the debut album of this Latin Celtic band, that helps
remind us that Spanish music is part of the Celtic tradition – Gaul, a region that is now the northern Franco-Spanish border,
was one of the seven Celtic nations and brought a lot of Gypsy music into the tradition.
Perceval is a 5-piece band from Bogota, Columbia. They exhibit an interesting fusion of Celtic music with some Latin
influences. A rough translation of their Facebook page yields that they named the band after Sir Perceval, a knight of King
Arthur’s Round Table, because they want to communicate the force, and passion that the knight showed in the legends. The
band is made up of Alice Duran on percussion, whistle and voice; Diana Fernanda Velez on violin; Giovanni Espinosa and
Montsalvad on guitars; and Juan Caguasango on harp, flute, keyboard and behind the recording console. Sorry for mangling their names,
but the strange characters confuse most Web browsers.
Most of the songs on the album are traditional tunes, but there are several songs written by band members on the album.
The originals are interesting, allowing the band’s personal tastes to be expressed without having to stick to a well-known melody.
I also like the unusual intervals sometimes used in the harmonies – they are more dissonant that what I normally hear in Americanized
Celtic music.
One of my favorite pieces is “La Dama Del Lago,” The Lady of the Lake, that starts as a beautiful guitar feature, that I find
very reminiscent of renaissance pieces, and then spins into a rollicking full band medley of songs you might hear in an Irish
pub – though they wouldn’t have the castanets, like on the album. Throughout the album Perceval’s wonderful artistry comes through
in their arrangements, blending Latin music with traditional Celtic melodies.
There is not a lot of singing on this album. There is some spoken word and singing on “El Arpa de Tara,” where they arranged
the traditional reel “Tara’s Harp” or “The Harp That Once Through Tara’s Halls” (depending on who you talk to) into a lovely aire
and translated the lyrics into Spanish. There is also a poem spoken on the album, with the text in the album pamphlet.
One of the neat things about the combination of Latin and Celtic is they play with the syncopation, and use atypical percussion
instruments to emphasize the rhythms. I really like the use of harp in the band. I rarely see harps incorporated into a full band,
possibly because they tend to be rather quiet instruments. They also use a lot of djembe (an African hand drum) for percussion
along with castanets.
Two things on this album make the audio work very prominent on this album. The first is the sound effects used on several of
the tracks. Some ocean sounds layered in is cool. When you hear it for half the track it is starts detracting from the very
inventive arrangements. The same is true for the ‘rain stick’ percussion on a few tracks. The other flaw is the distortion,
mostly on the guitar tracks. One of the worst is “Fergal O’Gara/Devil’s Dream.” What probably happened is they set the recording
levels for fingerstyle, and when the guitarists started playing chords it overwhelmed the recording circuits, which causes very
nasty noise on the tracks. It would have been better if they had used post-production tricks to boost the final volume of the
guitars rather than trying to record them at a loud volume.
I only give this album two clovers, even though I love the music, because of the engineering problems. It’s a personal thing
– I think digital distortion is probably the most obnoxious audio problem a recording can have, especially since it is fairly
easy to prevent with a little practice behind the mixing board. With better engineering and a subtler touch with the sound effects
this album might have been a four. Their arrangements of the music really show off a side of the music that is not often seen with
Americanized arrangements. The music certainly warrants a four, and hopefully with a little practice in the studio their next album
will have more polish.
If you want to listen to some of their music or contact the band for a copy of the album check them out on
MySpace and search for "PERCEVAL MÚSICA CELTA" on
Facebook. They don't have a Web site up yet.
Note: Thanks to BabelFish for help translating. While I can muddle through Spanish, I’m not as accurate as their site for fast bulk translations.
Rating system:
 | Don’t waste your money on this. |
| Has some cool elements, not my cup of tea. |
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| Good middle of the road, will occasionally appear on my iPod. |
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| Wonderful album with something for almost everybody. |
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| Buy it. Trust us on this one. |
About the Author
Liz Patton is the founder of Celtic Music Nations, an avid Celtic musician and fan. She has played guitar and bass for over a decade, and occasionally dabbles in other
Celtic instruments like mandolin, bodhran, fiddle and tin whistle. She wrote and edited for the University of Texas at Arlington's student paper for two years.
She has an Associate's in Commercial Music from South Plains College, and a Bachelor's of Music from UT Arlington.
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