L'Ham de Foc, 'U': an excellent Spanish album that started with an Australian didgeridoo

I have been a fan of traditional music for many years, and I also enjoy listening to fusions of very different styles.

'Los caminos de Serdekji', a medieval Spanish romance preserved by Sephardic Jews
Ana Alcaide, 'Luna sefardita': a beautiful song about a Sephardic girl from Toledo

In 1999 I bought one of the best albums I own in this genre. It was titled "U" (just that letter) and was the first album by the Valencian group L'Ham de Foc, formed a year earlier by Efrén López and Mara Aranda, which disbanded in 2007 after releasing three albums. "U" was the first album I bought in Valencian, and it had a fabulous but very atypical opening in Spain, as the first track played was a traditional Australian Aboriginal instrument: the didgeridoo, a wind instrument made of a long wooden tube estimated to be around 20,000 years old.

That ancient Australian instrument was blended in "El Nord" (The North), the album's opening track, with the bagpipes and the hurdy-gurdy, two instruments very common in traditional Galician music. Following that first instrumental piece came "Lluna d'Algeps" (Plaster Moon), a song in which Mara Aranda's fabulous voice gave voice to a woman waiting for her beloved at the port, the old Greek myth of Penelope, in this case the wife of a merchant. I'm Galician, but I often listen to this album, as well as traditional music in other languages.

"U" was an excellent album and I encourage you to listen to it in its entirety if you have the chance. Here you can listen to the two opening tracks, "El Nord" and "Lluna d'Algeps," back to back:

This is the original lyrics of "Lluna de algeps" in Valencian:

Una lluna d'algeps
pentina els seus cabells,
batedor de peix
mentre navega al mar.
Mercader de corones d'argent.

Una lluna d'algeps
dansa amb luxúria amb ell.
Li adorna el cinyell
amb els cabells de serp.
A la nit l'estelada esdevé.

Jo t'espere ací, asseguda al port
des del que partires,
mentre en l'aigua desfulle lenta
aquelles violetes.
Jo t'espere ací, asseguda al port
des del que partires
i el Sol em duu les noves teues:
no vol que t'espere.

Lluna despietada, t'amagues en el cel.
La tempesta ve bramant des de l'Orient.
Mercader, huí tampoc t'abraçaré.

Una lluna d'algeps diu
que no pot fer res.
Déu plorar ben alt,
mentre plou a la mar.
Amb l'alè...em faré un braçalet.

This is the translation of the lyrics into English:

A plaster moon
Combs its hair,
With the bones of a fish
As it sails on the sea.
Merchant of silver crowns.

A plaster moon
Dances lustfully with him,
Adorning his belt
With her hair of snakes,
While the stars come out.

I wait for you here, sitting in the port
From which you departed,
While those violets slowly
lose their petals.
I wait for you here, sitting in the port
From which you departed,
And the sun brings me the news:
It doesn't want me to wait for you.

Merciless moon, you hide in the sky,
The storm comes roaring from the East.
Merchant, I will not embrace you today either.

A plaster moon says
It can do nothing.
God weeps on high
While it rains on the sea.
With your breath...I will make myself a bracelet.