Nouvelle-France, you will recall, existed from 1534 to 1763, stretching from the north of what is now the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, down to the Mississippi delta in present-day Louisiana, a gigantic territory which bisected North America - to the chagrin of the English lords who were denied access to the vast virgin territories in the west of the continent. War and finally the Treaty of Paris of 1763 saw France cede Canada and all of its territories East of the Mississippi to England, in return for Belle Isle. The English are still laughing! But we digress. Throughout the existence of New France, colonists from Old France brought some musicians over in their baggage trains, and other were born in-country, including Charles-Amador Martin, "ordinary musician with the Jesuits of Quebec". What's more, a number of manuscripts were imported as they were published in France, to assist in the edification (and subjugation) of the indigenous peoples, which gave rise to numerous translations of a number of religious texts in native languages. The current album offers a good selection of 17th Century works (re-releases of a recording made in 1995 and finally available again), sung in the Abenaki language by the Montreal Studio of Ancient Music. The Abenaki language was spoken by the Micmac and Passamaquoddy tribes in what is now Quebec - unfortunately, only a couple of thousand members of these tribes survive in the province... This is a means of doing justice to peoples who were wiped from the face of the earth by religious invasion, and to musicians who, from Paris and quite involuntarily, saw their music used as a weapon. © Qobuz