Lydie Auvray - Mon voyage (2020)

Lydie Auvray presents her 23rd album with Mon Voyage. The "Grande Dame des Accordeons" has actually been on her very personal, musical journey of discovery for 42 years, but this time she is once again braving new paths. The twelve tracks on this CD are particularly rich in different styles of music, images and dynamics.

"I dared even more on side roads, more on new routes," she describes the development itself. Musette mixes with the joyful sounds of the Caribbean, a tango, full of surprising mood and tempo changes with jazz, in "Madinina" even Spanish rhythms sound and with "Couscous à la Véro" she proves that the driving sound of her accordion also fits wonderfully into the Orient. In addition to the instrumental compositions, two new songs enrich the album - soulful, personal, touching. But completely new tones, which cannot be clearly located geographically, can also be found on the CD and take the listener on a journey through unknown worlds.

In Jörg Fuhrländer Lydie Auvray also found a new musical friend and colleague for this album: The Cologne musician and composer, who plays the accordion as well as the piano himself, contributed three compositions: "On y va" is a dynamic dialogue between two accordions, cinematic , surprising, virtuoso. "Above the sky" also creates imagery in the mind's eye, opens mind and heart. "After breakfast" is humorous, busy, as if the players stumbled into the morning, optimistic and light-footed.

The piece "Tengo Tango" is a joint creation of the two. "It is the first time, by the way, that I am working with another accordionist." This collaboration also inspired Lydie Auvray to create her own new composition "Der Fuhrmann", with unpredictable, harmonious twists in the melody, sometimes melancholic, playful, full of complex yet easy arrangements.

Even their proven stage partners and long-time accomplices, the excellent musicians Markus Tiedemann (guitars & bass) and Eckes Malz (piano and percussion) have given the CD their personal touch: the chanson "La pluie", a small homage to the rain, original -Text and music by Markus Tiedemann "shows me again what a great songwriter Markus is". "Un par un" by Eckes Malz is jazzy, dense and yet completely weightless: Sometimes you think you are in the middle of a French crime thriller, then in a jazz pub and suddenly in a coupé, on the road on a sunny street ...

For the recordings, a tried and tested recording studio (Topaz in Cologne), the production team (Reinhard Kobialka and Markus Tiedemann) and strong musicians, completed by the percussionist Mario Argandoña, came together in a light, carefree way; different genres and influences could merge to form a harmonious symbiosis. Lydie Auvray's joie de vivre and her musical curiosity are evident in every piece, and despite her great desire to explore new territory, she always remains true to herself.