representation of a small event in the discographic scenery of the season. Not everyone could do it, as we were saying, but Hector Zazou.

Actually, he is one of the few musicians able to "sing out of the choir" of omologation and repetition.

He has always been a brave hermit of the seven notes. He ranges from Corsican traditional tenor singing ("Nouvelle polyphonies", 1993), to an extremely original homage to Arthur Rimbaud’s poetry("Sahara Blues",1995), to the icy expressiveness of Scandinavian folklore("Chansons des mers Froids,1996"). Now, he’s finally landed on the Irish Coasts; and he’s trying to rearrange some wonderful Holly chants of the early Catholicism , more or less dated 1000 a.d. With "Lights in the dark" - Detour, 1998 - he finally reaches that sort of internal peace he was looking for and which is an essential condition to bring those psalmodies to be mysteriously contemporary.

Mr Zazou, where do the materials you’re proposing again come from?

The basic stuff consists in ancient Irish fragments re-written by some musicologists at the end of last century or at the beginning of this one. Some already existed in an approximate version recorded 50 years ago. I did nothing but try to make them clearer and more comprehensible to modern listeners.

And that means?

That means that I had to make choices and take decisions, perhaps I was wrong but ,in my opinion, the changes I made were essential. For example the tonalities. Or the correspondences with current music: as a fact, I tried to insert Irish structure in a wider one in order to make those chants more similar and closer to us. Just as Peter Gabriel did some years ago when he recorded the soundtrack of "L’ultima tentazione di Cristo" ("Last temptation of Christ"). In my specific case, all this means, that I preferred to add some harmonies to those present in the original themes, and balance them with a gospel atmosphere. Believe me, it was sensational to discover how traditional ancient Irish music could mix perfectly with some other kind of music, whether far in space and in time.

Do you think you respected the original model?

I am quite sure about it; I think there are at least two ways to conceive what we call World Music. One is mainly occidental and its aim is to rearrange fragments and give them a new flavour. We can resume this tendency with the word innovation.
The second way, much more oriental, stands for the preservation of tradition which has to be transmitted with no changes, has to remain the same through centuries.
Since the beginning of the 90’s I’ve always tried to examine cultures and their musical manifestations with an occidental approach. And this goes also for "Lights in the dark". I’ve always tried to capture a modern flavour in the kind of music I loved; but I proudly can say I fully respected it.

So, you think that this ancient music could be appreciated by a large audience, don’t you?

Yes, I do, thanks to the enthusiasm which has welcome the works of many Irish bands, in recent years. But please remember that my dedication to the "Emerald Island" wasn’t based on commercial purposes given by the massive enthusiasm of the audience but it was only an artistic interest. Therefor my new album is an absolutely honest and sincere proposal.