Le Vent du Nord, no need to hide

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.

“This was part of the old French roots,” Boulerice says. “When they first arrived 400 years ago, they had bagpipes and hurdy-gurdies. But it was probably hard to keep in tune, because Quebec is very cold and the instrument is quite fragile. And also it was probably not the easiest thing to bring on the ocean.”

Boulerice began playing hurdy-gurdy 12 years ago. He was already working as a pianist, but fell in love with the instrument’s unique sound.

“It impressed me because it has one foot in the past and another one in the future,” he says. “It is very old, born in the 12th century, and at the same time it’s very modern because nobody knows it. And it’s like the synthesizer of the Middle Ages: Sometimes it sounds like an electronic instrument, but it also has this drone like a bagpipe. So I was attracted by this ambiguity.”

Le Vent du Nord recently released its third CD, “Dans les Airs,” and has been touring widely in North America and in Europe. Boulerice says it is interesting playing their music for audiences in other areas, especially when it comes to the language.

“It’s different, because they don’t laugh in the same places” he says. “And sometimes it’s very funny, because we can translate as we wish. We can translate a whole lyric, but also we do a lot of love songs and we joke about that -- how it’s always love songs, because we are French.”

He adds that language is less of a barrier than some people might expect.

“I think it’s like when I was young and I was listening to a lot of Anglo-Saxon music and American music,” he says. “I didn’t know anything about what the Beatles were talking about, but I loved it.

“And this traditional style, it also has enough musicality that you don’t really need to understand the lyrics to enjoy it.”--

Le Vent du Nord

Where: Theatre Raymond Kabbaz, 10361 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles

When: Sat., Mar. 29, 7:30 p.m.

Price: $35 ($20 students)

Contact: (310) 286-0553