The rumors are true: I’m going through some shizz with my record collection at present. It might be a result of having to move some 5000 plates multiple times in the last few years, the sheer crappiness of storage solutions for 45s, or even that most record stores seem unable to pack records to prevent damage during overseas travel, but something seems to be going on. It must be, given the fact that my time has been spent restoring cassette decks and my hard earned cash increasingly going to a tape format.
The less cynical view is that there’s just much better music coming out on cassette currently.
Bury Me In A Corner Of The Yard is the latest of the reel based format releases to join the collection. Comprised of rare archival recordings circa 1920’s from in or around Louisiana, it’s probably the best slab of new music I’ve picked up all year. Plenty of waltz-timed accordion, rough guitars and Southern yodeling, the tracks are emotionally charged leaving you in no doubt that you’re in Cajun country. It’s raw and honest music practiced and perfected as live performance pieces, never destined for a studio and likely never played at the same duration twice.
These tracks take me back half a decade to sessions at Kamikaze Towers with Paul. His love of archival recordings and their litany of imperfections is one thing that was never wasted on me during our sessions. Bury Me In A Corner… encapsulates not only these sessions but everything I looked for in a reissue of lost recordings. Death Is Not The End do it properly, big ups.
Tracklist
A1 –Segura Brothers – Bury Me In A Corner Of The Yard
A2 –Lawrence Walker – The Midnight Waltz
A3 –Sydney Landry – La Blouse Francaise
A4 –Albert Babineaux & Joe Creduer – Ma Cherie
A5 –Columbus Fruge – Bayou Teche
A6 –Artelus Mistric – You Belong To Me
A7 –Delint Guillory & Lewis Lafleur – Quelqu’un Est Jalous
B1 –Oscar Doucet & Alius Soileau – When I Meet You At The Gate
B2 –Soileau Couzens – Sur Le Chemin Chez Moi
B3 –Segura Brothers – A Mosquito Ate Up My Sweetheart
B4 –Adam Trehan – The Pretty Girls Don’t Want Me
B5 –Didier Herbert – I Woke Up One Morning In May
B6 –Amédé Ardoin – La Valse Du Ballard
B7 –Blind Uncle Gaspard – Sur Le Borde De L’Eau