The Lost Bayou Ramblers’ last studio album, Mammoth Waltz, was a quantum leap in merging trad Cajun and underground rock into some sort of progressive alternative.
The Ramblers’ second live affair, recorded at the diverse art/music Uptown venue Gasa Gasa, not only extends its predecessor’s boundaries but makes it look like a tame, housebroken puppy in comparison. Feedback, distortion, barbarian beats and alien, space-age sound effects are all part of a sonic mayhem that’s so wild towards the end, it’s a wonder that amps didn’t overheat and burst into flames.
Andre Michot’s driving accordion often sounds metallic; his brother Louis’ fiddling occasionally resembles a screeching bagpipe from a renegade bunch of kilt-clad Celtic rockers.
Though buzz and fuzz may be on the peripheral, at the core are traditional Cajun melodies from Nathan Abshire, Amedée Breaux and Octa Clark as well as a few adventuresome, trad-rooted originals.
Most songs are structured around the accordion/fiddle tandem but on the ingenious “O Bye,” Andre jukes on lap steel while Louis sings “O Bye” over a slippery, fiddle-fueled foundation of “Bluerunner.” The proverbial drum solo seizes control midway through before shifting into pyschedelia with Jimi Hendrix’s “Third Stone from the Sun” that eventually arrives back into “O Bye” and “Bluerunner.”
The last song, “O Marie,” blows it wide open into a symphony of chaos and, after that experience is over, you don’t know where you’ve been.
It’s not the type of music that card-carrying AARP members could easily dance to—unless they’re highly creative or super yoga supple—but it does make for one helluva epic performance.
