Mervent - Mervent 2 (2003)

One of my favourite Celtic bands from Russia. Enjoy!

«Celtic music has risen swiftly in popularity in Russia since it first began to be heard in the mid-1990s. The first bands on the scene in the late 90s included Si Mhor, Slua Si, Puck and Piper. Feeling their way in a new idiom and meeting up with new musicians on the same course, frequently by chance, the bands found a focus in the First Celtic Music Festival in Russia, held in Moscow in 1998. Since then twice-yearly festivals of Celtic inspired music have centred on St Patrick's Day and Samhain (the Pagan New Year). The initial, perhaps experimental, phase in Celtic music in Russia has come to a close, and recently a number of the original bands split up and reformed in new groupings under the leadership of individuals who have developed a clear vision of how they wish to express themselves through the broad medium of Celtic folk music. One such new grouping is the Moscow group Mervent [in translation from the Breton, “Mervent” means a wind from the southwest, and is a punning expression of their influences on the music that they play], which was formed in August 2000, with a nucleus of two members of Si Mhor - Igor Burmistrov (fiddle, guitar, lead vocals) and Anastasia Papisova (harp, vocals, dance). […]

The musicians of Mervent try to exploit to the full their very varied musical experience, and this comes across clearly in their sets. The rich diversity of stringed, wind and percussion instruments gives their sets a shimmering range of instrumentation which is fully exploited in the arrangements of tunes in their sets, and the Irish dance numbers performed by Anastasia (rated as one of the best performers of Irish dance in Moscow by Irish nationals visiting Russia) are a natural visual enhancement to their concerts. Mervent's repertoire consists mainly of the music of European peoples, from Scandinavia and Ireland to the Balkans and Western Ukraine. There are also arrangements of Armenian melodies, and original compositions. […] Mervent does not perform reconstructions, but concentrates on playing contemporary folk music in a style strongly their own. You can simply listen to it, dance to it, or enjoy it as it unfolds - it contains both the human and the ethereal moments, which are the true marks of music played from the heart. (Mervent.ru; group bio also available in French and Russian)

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