The Camac factory, deep in the Breton countryside, is a serene place. Birds tweet, sheep baa, and the soft pinging of harp-tuning gently blends with us humming Je Suis Encore Dans Mon Printemps as we go about our emails. But today, it's time for something different. Click on the video below for some electric harp rock!
Lena Woods, Jamie, Ricky and Mat are Grand Square Dance, and they’ve just released a new single: ‘Alive and Breathing’. Lena, their singer, is a classically-trained harpist, while Jamie (guitar), Mat (drums) and Ricky (bass) are rock musicians. Mix them together and you have a new sound for the French pop-rock scene, with melodies inspired by U2, vocals worthy of Pat Benetar, and experimental instrumentals that feel like Metallica, or Skunk Anansie.
Grand Square Dance was formed in 2008 in Rouen, Normandy. The group has released two EPs (2009, and February 2011). Their first EP was a mixture of rock and soul, but 2011 has seen them head more in the direction of hard rock, plus the electric harp. Alongside the heavy guitar riffs, energetic percussion and powerful vocals that remind you of the 1990s, the harp provides a more melodic, posied element.
Lena has played the harp since the age of seven (taught by her mother, director of Rouen’s Harpa school), but she broke off her harp lessons to concentrate on rock music in her teens. Grand Square Dance was originally a classic rock formation, and they released two albums like this (available here on FNAC). For their third album, of which their latest single ‘Alive and Breathing’ will be a part, they wanted to do something new.
"We immediately thought that integrating the electric harp could be very original and exciting’, Lena explains. "It’s true that it’s not the instrument that first springs to your mind when you think of rock music. But two years ago I had re-started my harp lessons, withMyriam Serfass, and I’d been exploring jazz harp. I quickly became interested in rock harp. Camac’s blue harps can be amplified and their sound processed like that of guitars, so even if the harp originally couldn’t have played any part in rock, it can now. We’re working on making my Baby Blue electric lever harp part of all the songs on our new album. You can follow our progress on MySpace and Facebook. There’ll be a tour in 2012, and a lot of other gigs before that too!"
