Parfin ou loder is a very special album for me: this is the last cd I bought in Mauritius, after a period of my life I spent most of my time travelling around Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. My thoughts about Some of the music I heard during this period is scattered through the blog. Now that my life is becoming more sedentary and traditional, the posts will talk more about common stuff, like Radiohead, Thom Yorke (coming up soon...) and Héroes del Silencio. I promise I will try to make the posts interesting for everybody.
Like most of the albums of this period of my life, Parfin ou loder is a great production. But, contrary to most of them, there is information about this album online. The website of Étaé, the artist of the album presents plenty of videos and material that are totally worth looking at. Unfortunately, it looks like there hasn't been a lot of movement on the site since mid-2012... Mauritian blues is, according to some locals, dying: people just prefer to listen to stuff from abroad. I guess that's just how things are: some forms of culture die while others are born.
One of the curious features of this album is that it presents the translation of the lyrics to French -the songs are interpreted in Mauritian creole, which is becoming a language of its own right. The album is permeated by a strong East-African identity. Like all the countries I visited, Mauritius will continue as an ongoing entity, its people will discover and re-invent their identities. Life will go on...
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