Jean, petit jean - Lihou - Traditional Music of the Channel Islands

Filmed live by Elliott Mariess ‪@Emariess‬ during the recording of the album - Réveillez-vous car il est jour (Awaken, because it is day) - Musiques traditionnelles des îles anglo-normandes
The band Lihou was launched by the association La Loure from Normandy, aiming at a present-day rendition of traditional Channel Islands music.
Lihou represents the live performance component of a larger project led by La Loure and the university of Caen aiming to promote field recordings of music and oral traditions collected in the Channel Islands by various organisations between the late 1930s and the 1980s.
These sound collections, kept in libraries and archives in France and the United Kingdom, had never been gathered in one place before; most of them had never been heard by the wider public or even by most Channel Islanders. This was accomplished with the publication in 2018 of the book and CD Traditional music & songs of the Channel Islands; published as part of La Loure’s “Sources” collection. Lihou has performed concerts on various occasions in recent years, both in the Islands and in France, during a maritime festival it was decided that now was the time to put together a disc of this unusual group, made up of musicians from Guernsey, Normandy, Brittany and England!
It was important that the album produced be available both free in streaming platforms as well as physically as a CD for greater coverage over the planet, helping promote the little-known repertoire as far and wide as possible. Funding was obtained from both the bailiwick of Guernsey through The Guernsey Arts Commission and Bailiwick Folk & Roots (an offshoot of the old Sark Folk Festival) as well as The Government of Jersey through the support of The Creative Island Partnership and L’Office Du Jèrriais.
Funds were used to produce, record, master and press the album as well as to pay some of the professional fees, it was also used to document some of the process with videos and photographs. An essential element of the project, and to keeping costs down, were the amazing donations of time, accommodation, food, and support, to help get this project off the ground. Overall, fantastic support, effort and contributions from the whole Channel Islands was given to pull this important recording together, making it a true joint effort.