LE GRAND BAROUF

Le Grand Barouf is the obvious encounter of four important musicians from the contemporary traditional music scene. Together, they create and play music with a wild energy and infectious enthusiasm.

Initially, Julien Padovani and Greg Jolivet came together as a duo to create an incredibly powerful blend of rock, traditional, and raw music. Repetition, loops, and trance are the backbone of Le Grand Barouf. The cornerstone of the project is a unique sound serving traditional music, which remains the defining characteristic of Le Grand Barouf.

After several performances, they wanted to continue this commitment to dance music, for the dance floor, by joining forces with François Robin, a virtuoso musician from the Vendée region, playing the veuze, a powerful bagpipe, with his highly precise melodic style.

Then, Maxime Dancre, an excellent drummer from Poitiers, with his meticulously crafted sound, completes the quartet. The four musicians, with their strong and complementary musical identities, are seasoned veterans of the European folk and traditional music scenes and know how to compose with respect for the dance. Their music is always based on finely crafted melodies, often original compositions, upon which rests an incredibly groovy accompaniment. The ornamented phrasing of the veuze (a type of bagpipe), constantly varying, with a powerful and fairly high sound, maintains a melodic tension. Gregory’s chameleon-like hurdy-gurdy, with its multiple sonic palettes, wanders between themes and accompaniment lines, saturated riffs, and ethereal textures. The accordion holds everything together with a rich, rhythmic, varied, and highly inspired harmonization and orchestration. Finally, the drums provide an extremely varied, refined, and effective rhythmic foundation, always respectful of the leaps and bounds of the dance. Hailing from different regions, the trio draws on each other’s repertoire (Brittany, Poitou, Berry). Le Grand Barouf also sees itself as a space for creativity and experimentation, a place where encounters with other musicians can complement and evolve the group’s sound.