Album Review: Michot's Melody Makers - Cosmic Cajuns from Saturn

Michot's Melody Makers

Cosmic Cajuns from Saturn

**and1/2 out of *****

Concurrently coming from way down south and outer space Michot's Melody Makers captured a night of adventurous music at the Bywater locale Saturn Bar and appropriately titled the release Cosmic Cajuns from Saturn. The eight track offering builds to various levels of freakout as the quartet push and pull at the fabric of Cajun tunes. 

Recorded exactly one year ago (12/9/19) the band, Louis Michot - fiddle and vocals Bryan Webre - bass, t'fer, sampler Kirkland Middleton - drums. t'fer, sampler Mark Bingham - guitar, inject pulsing vibrations and bass rumbling behind the fiddle work. Michot is the frontman for The Lost Bayou Ramblers who manage to get spacey themselves, but with the Melody Makers he lets the samples and experimentation play a major role.  

Michot's fiddle and vocals dominate the more straight ahead opening offerings as "Ma jolie petite fille", "Jolie joues roses", and "La jument de Michot" work a slow gait forward as the slow vibrations babble around them. "Bainonne" picks up the bass rumbling and cackles in ominous fashion while "T'as vole mon traîneau" injects a spritely and whimsical tone to the proceedings. 

Things start to truly get out there for "Reveil Michot" which starts with a free jazz intro before flashes of hip swinging pop, droning pulses and echoing warbles. "Blood Moon" stays experimental throughout acting as a sonic poem while album closer sits the difference between dance laden hoedown and experimental sonic explorations. 

"Michot's Melody Makers Medley" is almost seventeen minutes starting off with a grooving ode to whiskey drinking before dropping into an ode about the destruction about Hurricane Andrew around minimalist backing wrapping up the album with a call out to the true friends who help us get by. 

While not as freaky or as enlightening as Michot's main band's live work, this collection is a good memory of a night among friends and family playing old songs in new fashion. 

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