Ay Ay Sailors!
Back to the land! We are now in Brest! Home of some great French musicians and also of the most stubborn French people: the Bretons! Fun fact about the Bretons, if you go to any festival in France (or even in Europe). I truly mean ANY festival, you can be sure you will see a Brittany flag! They are everywhere! It even took Le Nouvel Observateur (one of the main French newspapers) to write an article
Why there is always a Breton flag somewhere. Jokes aside, there are great people (for most of them).
Back to the music! Brest is the home of some fantastic musicians and one is Yann Tiersen. Yann is probably one of the most well-known French musicians in the world, mostly thanks to Amélie Poulain. It would be a mistake to think he is just an OST musician (even though Goodbye Lenin, reissued on vinyl earlier in 2023, is another great OST and I may prefer this one to Amelie’s). His most recent albums are very different from his early albums and I cannot recommend enough to go through his discography. Another great artist from Brest is Miossec. His first three albums are his most popular but I personally like Finistériens produced by… Yann Tiersen. They actually did a mini-tour together when this album came out in 2009. One of the best French composers meets one of the best writers, it has to be a fantastic album. Finally, even though he is not from Brittany, I would like to introduce Dominique A, probably my favorite French artist. He is a long time collaborator of Yann Tiersen, again, and released some of the most beautiful songs sung in French in the last 30 years. Eleor, released in 2015, is a reference to Elleore, the micronation located in the Roskilde fjord in Denmark and in general gives an important place to remote or symbolic geographical places which inspired the author (such as Cape Farvel in Greenland, Canada, or Otago in New Zealand). Sounds like a great soundtrack to our journey.
See you tomorrow!
Did you know?! While I was writing this post, Word corrector was constently suggesting to use Breast instead of Brest. Your naughty boy, Bill Gates!