San Salvador

Vocal Folk Mediterranean
San Salvador

Occitan polyphony is the starting point for this six-voice and percussion collective as they embark on their search for universal folklore, rooted in the region’s deep troubadour traditions yet circulating between cultures and musical genres. Their compositions use the Occitan language as a rhythmic instrument, combining poetry with hypnotic vocal harmonies cascading over shifting patterns of compelling percussion.

In the performance work ‘La Grande Folie’, they question the myth of an unalterable ‘heritage’, seeking instead ‘to answer the question of the boundaries between tradition and creation. An answer to those who say that music has a beginning and an end. It’s a joyful quest that sees them following every path from the crossroads of trance, choral punk, global vocalese and math-rock constructions; modern Occitan troubadours at large in the world.

During the last years, San Salvador has proven to be an excellent live band as well. Their appearance at WOMEX 2018 was a huge success. Afterwards, in the summer of 2019, they played at many renowned international festivals in Europe, including Sziget and Ostrava. The pandemic stopped all live activities in 2020 and in the first half of 2021, but summer 2021 saw many open air concerts, at least. And also, at the beginning of 2021 their long-awaited first full-length album was released in Europe.

In the second half of 2021 and in 2022 the band will focus on their families and only play postponed concerts from the previous years. From May 2023 San Salvador will be touring again with a new program.

Videos
  • San Salvador - La Fin de la Guerra - [Clip Officiel]
    San Salvador - La Fin de la Guerra - [Clip Officiel]
  • San Salvador - Quau te mena - [Clip Officiel]
    San Salvador - Quau te mena - [Clip Officiel]
  • San Salvador - Full Performance (Live on KEXP)
    San Salvador - Full Performance (Live on KEXP)
  • San Salvador - La Liseta | Live |
    San Salvador - La Liseta | Live |
  • San Salvador en tournée aux Vieilles Charrues
    San Salvador en tournée aux Vieilles Charrues
  • San Salvador - Teaser - La Grande Folie - 2017
    San Salvador - Teaser - La Grande Folie - 2017
  • San Salvador - résidence à Des Lendemains Qui Chantent
    San Salvador - résidence à Des Lendemains Qui Chantent
Images
  • San SalvadorSan Salvador San Salvador
Press
Working in a call-and-response fashion, together they embellish the phrase with vibrato and variations of pitch, and build it by repetition into something hypnotic and trance-like.
Songlines, 05.28.2020
Something incredibly powerful.
The Guardian
[...] San Salvador, from the French Massif Central, are a slick, rousing young six-piece whose thrilling polyphonic harmony singing is backed by pounding percussion [...]
The Guardian, 07.30.2019
[...] The evening was rounded off by more energetic vocals from French a cappella group San Salvador. Rousing, sonorous and deep they sent people off into the night glowing inside.
Songlines, 07.28.2019
San Salvador, from the city of San-Salvadour in France, brought equal intensity with much starker means; six voices, two tom-toms and a tambourine (...) Its music is a mixture of vocal-harmony traditions from all over - rich chords, call-and-response, drone-backed dissonances, microtonally inflected incantations, complex counterpoint, hocketing, propulsive unison refrains - delivered with handclaps, drumbeats and full-throated vehemence.
The New York Times
[...] In hoodies and trainers, San Salvador might have wandered on stage from the crowd. They performed in Occitan. “In France,” said Gabriel Durif ruefully, “no one can understand us either.” The music was at once simple — six voices and two drums — and richly complex, with vocal lines overlapping like parallel conversations and the combination of rimshots and heavy drumbeats factoring up into mathematical polyrhythms. The longer songs — “La Lisetta” with its false climaxes and the headlong rush of “Enfant de la Campagna” — swerved through moods and modes, now chattering, now lamenting, now weaving a ritual tapestry, Durif feeding a tambourine through his hands as if slapping out a disc of dough [...].
Financial Times, 08.13.2019
Discography
La Grande Folie
La Grande Folie
2021
Line up

6 musicians + 2 crew

Gabriel Durif - vocals, tambourine
Eva Durif - vocals
Thibault Chaumeil - vocals, tom bass
Marion Lherbeil - vocals, tom bass
Laure Nonique Desvergnes – vocals
Sylvestre Nonique Desvergnes - vocals, drums

Crew: FOH Sound Engineer, Monitor Sound Engineer

Availability

Territories:

Eastern Europe, Northern Europe, Central Europe

2025 all year
Contact
Frank Abraham
Frank Abraham
Managing Director, Head of A&R Global Pop Music, Booking Agent
fa@f-cat.de / +49 30 26 103 29 20

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