La Bricole

The duo, La Bricole sing of the port of Boulogne-sur-Mer. 

The songbooks left behind by modest and rough seafarering’ people are overflowing with life. Songs of shrimp fisherwomen, herring fishermen and dockers rub shoulders with those of the adventures of convicts, sailors, and privateers who have returned from the other side of the world. Enriched by this picturesque collection, La Bricole has created the music of where the Boulognese patois resonated with the sounds heard in the West Indies or the Maghreb during National Service, in neighbouring England, the smuggling trade, or in the Black Sea, in the Indian Ocean from where jute and minerals were brough…

Vincent Brusel and Olivier Catteau sing of the hard-headed sailors of the Port of Boulogne sur Mer.  Survivors of fishing expeditions that they endured from the age of ten, these sailors would embark at twenty for the West Indies or the Black Sea and spend years of their life under the flag. They collected and saved-up precious, forbidden songs portraying their lives and exploits. One or two centuries later, come and hear them vent their anger and impertinence under the disarming lightness of a kind of Creole musette, cooked up with a melodeon and mandolin. Their latest CD, Jour de Malheure also features Julioen Biget, who brought his bouzouki and guitar to the mix.

Note: The name of the duo comes from the French term for a leather band used to haul vessels, (sometimes called a “breastband” in English.) Regarding “hauling with a bricole,” this was mainly done for barges on towpaths, often harnessed to a draft horse, but this technique was also used by men, women, and children. It was also employed at jetties in port,  (“jetée” or “jetty” in English) referring to a projection into the sea, often ending with a lighthouse. It was used to “throw” (“jeter”) the ship out to sea, or to bring it back to port, and to do this, it had to be hauled, (“haler” or “déhaler”), using ropes thrown to those on board, who could grab them by hand or attach them to a bricole.

La Bricole chante le port de Boulogne-sur-Mer. 

Les carnets de chansons laissés par le peuple modeste et rude des gens de mer débordent de vie. Des chansons de pêcheuses de crevettes, de pêcheurs de harengs et de dockers qui côtoient celles des aventures de forçats, de marins, de corsaires revenus de l’autre bout du monde.

Riches de ce magot pittoresque, les trois musiciens chanteurs inventent une musique portuaire où le patois boulonnais résonne des sons entendus aux Antilles ou au Maghreb lors du service national, chez le voisin anglais, complice de toutes les contrebandes, ou en Mer Noire, dans l’Océan Indien où l’on s’en allait chercher le jute, les minerais…