So where does this group of young kids with a band called ‘Feufollet’ fit into the mix of hard-drinking and hard-partying bon temps gumbo musique? I’d say somewhere between the heart and the head. This ain’t zydeco. This music is closer to French ballads- themselves not too far removed from English ballads- with heavy doses of other influences, all subsumed to treatment by the traditional Cajun instruments of fiddle and accordion. Thus it’s more lyric-based with less boogie… but you can still dance to it, though maybe a bit slower sometimes.
‘Au Fond du Lac’ is a slow haunting gypsy-like number that leads off the album, with Scarlet Rivera-like fiddle and female vocals to match. ‘Des Promesses’, with its guitar and organ grand orchestral introduction quickly advises us to not get complacent yet; even greater things are yet in store. It then breaks into a rollicking rocker- complete with male vocals and traditional fiddle and accordion- that doesn’t slow down until the final note is played. ‘La Berceuse du Vieux Voyageur (The Old Traveler’s Lullabye)’ is just that, with slow soulful female vocals to match. ‘Si T'as Fini’ adds some kick-ass guitar to the mix as male and female alternate songs and viewpooints, the female-vocal songs slower and sadder, the male-vocal songs more lively and danceable, as if these roles had been handed down and honed as such for generations.
After a brief ‘Do Wah Interlude’, male and female finally join forces in a duet, in what may be the album’s finest moment, ‘Ouvre la Porte (Open the Door)’ is a tearful ballad ‘about a woman dying of an illness as her faithful lover calls for the doctor and bids a sorrowful farewell.’ ‘Assis Dans la Fenetre Interlude’ follows with an almost Celtic-like chant with female vocals only, a long ‘good-bye forever’. ‘Les Jours Sont Longs (The Days are Long)’ is the first song to add a pronounced country feel to the album, almost country-pop, with pedal steel guitar solo breaking up the twangy male vocals and traditional fiddle, complete with stinger on the end. ‘Cowboy Waltz’ is the female counterpart, with banjo and accordion- and bells- as they continue the male-female back-and-forth in an almost-too-perfect symmetry. ‘Jean Billaudeaux’ is an instrumental doodle that serves as little more than another interlude- in an album full of them- before continuing with the male-side boogie of ‘Je M'en Va’ and ‘Mon Tour’ , followed by ‘Ouvre la Porte Interlude’, another instrumental- this one acoustic- something of a ‘Cajun remix’ of the earlier duet I suppose.
‘En Movement’ is another light-rocker in a string of them that has little by little come to define the album, and the ‘Lomax Interlude’- with ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax pontificating over the debris of last night’s fais do-do- doing little to change that. This music may have indeed derived from the generations of what came before, but with a difference. While all the best-known Louisiana groups have converted to almost-English-only lyrics as fast as they can, Feufollet sings only in Cajun French, even though neither of the vocalists has a French surname. This is Cajun music for a new generation, better educated and open to new influences, expanding ever outward while refining and defining the central core… the still-beating heart. That’s what’s been handed down over the years. It’s called En Couleurs by Feufollet. Hardie K says… you know what.
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