The Heart of the Plain: Lo Còr de la Plana and "Sant Trofima"

One of these days I will visit France. Actually, I have been in France but I never really visited France. I was passing through on a train, through the French countryside, and into Paris where I got off the train, took the subway to a different train station, got on another train, and headed through the French countryside to Le Havre where I caught a ferry to Ireland. So, I literally saw France from the inside of a train and I saw Paris from underground, and that was it.

A friend and his wife are planning to rent a villa in Provence next year. Every so often, they travel someplace interesting like Italy or France, rent a little villa, invite some friends and enjoy 2-4 weeks traveling around and seeing the countryside, enjoying the local fare and pretending that life just stops for a while. They have invited us over the years, and over the years we have found reasons not to go, usually because we are too busy or we have something else going on or we have work obligations. But I'm 50 now, and as I am now firmly ensconced in the last half of my life I think it is important that I indulge the things that give me joy. Those things are travel, food, music, and friends. And what better way to get them all in than spending 2-4 weeks in Provence where all of these things would be available to me?

And perhaps, when I am in Provence, I will get to see Lo Còr de la Plana. While prepping for a world music show about a year or so back, I found them. It is my practice to find and buy 10-15 new songs for each show, usually from albums released relatively recently. So, in my iTunes search, Lo Còr de la Plana popped up. Their unique sound, just voice and percussion and hand clapping and foot stomping, was different enough to catch my attention. It turns out there is more to their unique approach. Lo Còr de la Plana was formed in Marseilles in 2001, and they sing most of their songs in Occitan, a language I had never heard of but which apparently is the regional language of Provence. The songs are polyphonic chants in that language, but they apply chants and songs to a modern sensibility. According to Womad, they are not interested in reviving a long-dead past or culture, but appropriating what they need and applying it to the realities of Occitan life today. The band has released three albums to date, and their first album, Es Lo Titre (2003), won the prestigious Grand Prix de l'Académie Charles-Cros in the world music category.

This song, Sant Trofima, is from their 2012 CD Marcha!