I VIRASOLELHS by LOU DALFIN

After a four year break after their last album, L’oste del diau, the LOU DALFIN is back on the international scenes. The release of the new I Virasolelhs (the sunflowers) is also an opportunity to celebrate the twenty-five year long career of a band, whose music has promoted, in Europe and all around the world, the culture of the Occitan valleys of Piedmont.
In I Virasolelhs the fiery attack of Occitania e basta, the first track, manouche-like, hardened by full blown horns, leaves no doubt about the fact that Sergio Berardo, the charismatic leader of the group, does not want to “leave the fight”, even if he and “the Dolphins” have been around for more than a quarter of a century. The line up of the band is enlarged in this new CD, proof of the continuous search for an original sound. And so, new string instruments are used (mandolin, bouzouki and banjo) and the horns as well (sax and trumpet). The repertoire presents sixteen new songs, divided between mazurkas, polkas, rigodon, scottish, curente and rugby anthems too. But this time the customary reworking in arock style of the traditional material is coulpled with lyrics which sound more convincing than usual. And so among stories of local drop outs, popular legendary figures and anti-globalisation claims, I Virasolelhs reaches a perfect balance between unadultered fun, irresistible and unstoppable, and deep philosophical reflections. The road travelled by Berardo and his partners seems to be the only way to not forget the past, avoiding the risk of shutting it into a museum hall, using the consciousness of one's own origins to open up to the world.
Guided by hurdy-gurdy maestro Sergio Berardo, the LOU DALFIN have been protagonists over the years of countless activities (music, dance and liuther's art courses, organization of festivals and exhibitions). Thanks to them, Occitan music little by little has come out of the small circle of local situations, to become known by a wide and culturally composite audience. Since the 90's, the band has introduced, next to the traditional instruments (hurdy-gurdy, accordeon, violin, horns) guitars, keyboards and drums, which have modernized their music without radically changing their sound. Infact the aim of the LOU DALFIN has always been that of keeping alive the traditional legacy of the valleys in which they were born, without renouncing to the pleasure of making it known outside the circle of friends and relatives.

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