RFI Musique: Explore, your 22nd album to date, features an in-depth exploration of electronic sounds. What prompted this sudden change of musical direction?
Alan Stivell: I think all the diverse ingredients that make up my musical ‘cuisine’ were right there from the very beginning on my first album. Of course, every era has its own take on modernity… and it’s obvious that the sounds of today are very different from those of yesterday. I’ve actually spent a lot of my career trying to pioneer new sounds, both in terms of those that have been invented through new technology and those discovered in the course of travels to distant lands. I’m a very curious person by nature and sometimes the most difficult thing is actually deciding which direction, out of all these different possibilities, to go in. I’d say my desires change with each and every recording. My last album went at a somewhat slower pace, that’s why things are more energetic this time round and I explored an electronic side to things. I wanted to insist more on the fact that my work fits into the "contemporary music" category. When I began writing material for the new album, I started out with very basic, binary rhythms and then I composed the melodies based around my harp and vocals. To cut a long story short, I’m someone who likes the idea of contrasts and musical fusion – and I love trying out new recipes!

Unlike your last album, which was a 100% instrumental production marking the 50th anniversary of the Celtic harp, your new album brings vocals very much to the fore. Where did this desire to get back to singing come from?
I think the fact of producing a vocal album is a return to normality. I’m a musician but I’ve always been a singer, too, even if I have put out an instrumental album from time to time. Having said that however, I did make a conscious effort to bring the vocals to the fore because I feel I’ve really hit the mark now with the microphone. I feel much more comfortable than I did in the past. I’ve managed to place my voice in such a way that it allows me to add these little flourishes and embellishments.

You sing in a variety of languages on the new album – in Breton as well as French and English – and you cover a wide range of themes. On the opening track Miz Tu (November), for instance, you raise a very topical issue, singing about the riots that took place in the French suburbs during the autumn of last year. Did this national youth crisis make a big impact on you?
Yes, it did, very much so! I felt as if I suddenly grasped this utter sense of despair amongst young people. I’ve always taken a general interest in other people because I feel other people’s frustration as my own. Although I come from a fairly privileged background, I understand there are certain problems of communication between different people, different cultures and different generations. As an artist, I think all you can try and do is pick up the pieces and try and put them back together again.

There’s another very significant track on your album: Menez, a sort of upbeat and highly jubilant fest-noz. What inspired this track?
Menez is a track that stands all on its own really. It’s like a picture with many different facets. Basically, it all started out with a burst of improvisation – and my desire to include the good old Bleimor bagad I used to belong to on this album. All the members of this group of ‘sonneurs’(players of traditional music) are personal friends of mine and they agreed to let me use a sample of their music. That’s how the track began. After that, I simply let myself be guided by a spirit of inspiration, just letting one note follow another… That meant the melody could start off in Scotland then waft over to eastern Europe, then drift through the American jazz scene before heading back to Brittany again. The lyrics are like multi-layered paintings, too. Menez actually means mountain. The visions I explore through the lyrics all have something in common. The words might be inspired by a vision of my personal life or images which simply translate the emotion you might feel gazing out at a landscape - and so on.

For more than four decades now, your entire musical creation has been focused on Celtic cultures. As a pioneer of this style, what view do you take of the current Celtic music scene?
It seems to me that the Breton scene, and the Celtic music scene as a whole, has been exemplary in terms of opening up to other world cultures and experimenting with different fusions. But then I don’t think we deserve any particular merit for that because it comes to us naturally. Take Brittany’s geographical situation, the simple fact that we give on to the ocean has a great influence on us as human beings. And I think that holds true for other Celtic countries like the British Isles which are also surrounded by the sea. At the same time these cultures have always maintained links with mainland Europe. And it’s all these different aspects of Celtic music that makes it such a federating force. As for my personal favourites in the Celtic movement, I greatly appreciate people like Erik Marchand and Pascal Lamour who are moving in the same direction as me.

You live in a village in Morbihan, Brittany. What particularly appeals to you about living in this region of western France?
I don’t really know. Does one systematically have to analyse what one loves? Why do I have a preference for shades of blue-green that recall the colours of the sea and, at the same time, the colours of wide open meadows. I’m talking about a particular shade you don’t find once you start moving inland. I actually think Bretons are totally impregnated with the whole aquatic side of things and you can hear that in our music. Even when there’s a strong rhythm to a piece, you can feel this sort of undulation in the melody. I have to admit that my attachment to the region is all the stronger as I wasn’t actually born here. I spent a lot of my life living outside the region. So that made me much more partial to the Brittany I’d dreamt about for so long.