Whitewater by Erwan Keravec

Erwan Keravec is a french bagpipe player, composer, improviser, and performer. Active since the 1990s, he is a unique figure on the French music scene, combining traditional Breton music with contemporary creation. His new solo album, “Whitewater”, to be released by Ici d'ailleurs, is a personal work, a return to his roots for the musician after 15 years focused on collective projects.

Originally from Brittany, Erwan Keravec was introduced to the bagpipes as a teenager by the player and luthier Jorj Botuha, then joined the bagad Roñsed Mor de Lokoal Mendon with his brother Guénolé Keravec on the bombarde. In 1996, he began to explore new aesthetics with the desire to break down the barriers between his instrument and its traditional culture. He then ventured into improvised music (free jazz, noise) and collaborated with Jean-Luc Cappozzo, Beñat Achiary, Mats Gustafsson, and others.

The musician brought the bagpipes into the contemporary sphere and helped to enrich their repertoire. With the Offshore company he founded, he led ambitious ensemble projects, performing American minimalist works such as Terry Riley's “In C” for 20 players (2022) and “8 sonneurs pour Philip Glass” (2023). His ensembles perform in France and internationally (Europe, Canada, Australia), and have recorded several albums.

Erwan Keravec has gradually moved the bagpipes away from their traditional use in order to explore the full range of peripheral sounds that this ancient instrument, found everywhere and in infinite variations, can produce: clusters, differentials, strikes, rubs, drones, taking advantage of its ability to emit continuous sounds and drones. Erwan Keravec's music evokes Eliane Radigue, Pauline Oliveros, Nurse With Wound…


“Whitewater” is an album that has been in the making for several years, a mature work for Erwan Keravec, who has devoted a great deal of energy to developing his ensemble projects since 2010. For the musician and composer, it marks a return to a more intimate personal practice of the instrument, a form of meditative and experimental research.

Erwan Keravec's album seems to be imbued with the aesthetics of white water: very airy, turbulent, sparkling, unstable, free. Keravec reconciles himself with the usual use of the bagpipes: its “chanter” (melodic pipe) and its three drones; stripped down, without artifice, in its purest form. This apparent sobriety opens up a rich sound world, traversed by turbulence and eddies, like so many micro-acoustic events.

The first two tracks on the album, “Increase the Flow Rate” and “Until the Swirl Appears” function as twin pieces: a sequence of scenes, with new elements added successively, like a build-up of sound pressure leading to the emergence of a musical whirlpool. After this descent through the rapids, the third and final track, “Leeshore” differs greatly and brings a serene conclusion to the work. Created from several recording takes, it develops like a large, dense but ephemeral layer of buzzing sound. It offers a form of contemplative resolution after the accumulated tension.

“Whitewater” is a rich and poetic album. It is a delicate, captivating sonic journey that reinvents the bagpipes as a vehicle for deep listening—a bit like an aquatic immersion.