KALLISTEA

The A-Filetta group

Meet with the Balanain group

In Filetta, “the roots of Corsica”

25 years already that A Filetta (the fern) communicates the enthusiasm of its Corsican polyphonic songs throughout the world. With Sì di me, their new album produced by their friend Bruno Coulais, with whom they had recorded the B.O of the Himalayas film, they join again with a music where the instruments take as much importance than the voices. A return to the sources. Meet with Jean-Claude Acquaviva, theorist of the group.

RFI: What means S ì di me?
JC a: the translation which appears to me most exact is “You are miens, of my family”. It is the direction of the hospitality of the Corsicans. We have here a way of conceiving the report/ratio with the other like a report/ratio of proximity, solidarity, sharing. It is not the fact that particular chromosomes are had, but we are a small community in Corsica. All are known. It is what makes our force and our weakness. One is all of the tribe of somebody. It is often heavy. If di me is addressed as much to those which sing with us on the disc, that with those which listen to the disc, because one has unceasingly this feeling to be brothers.

Is the practice of the polyphony related to the establishment of a social link?
Absolutely. It is perhaps what explains its force and the fact that it found a new reason to exist. Because it should well be realized that, to the Second World war, this polyphony was rural. Today, this company does not exist any more and yet this music finds a new raison d'être and found a new function social. The paghjella (polyphonic song par excellence), which was there is 50 years the song of the workers of labour, is today that of the colleges and the family celebrations.

In this new album, you accompany your songs by music. It is new for you?
There always was a double repertory. Purely polyphonic, the other which one calls, in a a little arbitrary way, songs. These ten last years, one worked much on the vocal one and today, one leaves an album which utilizes the instrumentation. That does not remove anything with our work and one makes polyphonies in rate/rhythm whereas they are traditionally very free. There is an internal rate/rhythm, that of the word. Here, one presents a polyphony which lies down on rhythmic. This meeting with Bruno Coulais really made evolve/move your work?
We often say, when we present the songs of Bruno whom we interpret, whom it became much more than one partner. It is a big brother whom one likes to serve because, likes to him to be useful itself of us. He made musics which resemble to him. No moment, he wanted to make Corsican polyphony and at the same time, he used our vocal personality. That enabled us to explore new tracks, in particular that which tends to give him a rhythmic news. There are generally rates/rhythms Eastern than those of the “pulsated” music Western.

Did the fact of having côtoyé thanks to him Akhenaton, at the time of the B.O of Like a magnet, make evolve/move your step?
We saw as of the beginning with the rap, of the obvious family ties. Because what imports in the oral tradition, it is not the music which one puts on the words, they are the words themselves. And the rate/rhythm of our music is that of the word. It is in the sense that the rap is close to us. In the rap, one addresses to somebody. And we sing in the same way. There is always this species of projected sound where one takes the other with witness, one invites it to listen. There is also the fact that the rappor defends the same values as us, of the values of justice, solidarity, equity, sharing. There is often the same vision of the world according to which any east governs by the economic and financial effectiveness.

Is fidelity with the roots, opening on the world, it A Filetta?
More than fidelity with the roots, it is to have roots. Since one has some, one does not need to prove that one is faithful there. That does not prevent us from being open on the world, to replace our song in its matrix. Our tradition is made songs of the Maghreb, Berber songs, polyphonies which one finds in Albania, in Sardinia, in Georgia. For us, there is important to remain open on the world. Because if, to a given moment, one says: “The tradition is there, it has such contour”, it becomes museum piece. The tradition has direction only if it continues to be the reflection of a community which advances.

Do your rounds abroad enrich they your culture?
That enables us to leave this face-to-face discussion with the French centralism which does not recognize our identity. It is thus a means for us of alleviating the things because one is made recognize naturally by the song. And at the same time, one grows rich with the other traditions. One realizes that from one end to another of planet, the techniques of song are not so distant from/to each other. It arrived to us, at the polyphonic Meetings of Calvi which we organize each year in mid-September, to see Bulgarian singers completion amazed in front of the Amerindian ones who sing melodies which they believed to come from Bulgaria.

There is a piece which is entitled Tbilissi. You often worked with the artists géorgiens?
We were brought to meet many artists at these Meetings and the power was on very extremely with Géorgiens. As soon as they started to sing, one had the impression that they returned us an image of ourselves, it was enough surprising. One found in them the same gestures, the same ways of seeking itself in the song. In fact, on the harmonic level, they have a music very close to ours. Blow, one started to sing songs géorgiens and they returned two years after, with songs with us. Corsican singers would have been really said. They are extraordinary people, from where this title to pay homage to them.

In Filetta Sì di me (Virgin)

RFI Music Pierre Rene-Worms