78rpm

Like the Carolina Chocolate Drops, the Canadian trio of Sheesham Crow on fiddle and harmonica, Lotus Wight, on banjo and kazoo and ‘Son’ Sanderson on sousaphone revive the sound of old-time Americana. They dress the part, too, looking like they’re off to a Saturday-night barndance on the plantation a century ago. But their latest album takes the notion of authenticity too far. While there is no doubting their innate musicality, to cut an album live onto lacquer disc using a 1937 Presto 78 rpm recording lathe – the very machine that John and Alan Lomax used – is an act of irrational contrariness. On what might have been a fine collection of jug-band and minstrel tunes, country blues and old-time folk dances, the result has a sonic quality that is as dodgy, muffled and scratchy as any of the original 78s featured in seminal collections such as Harry Smith's wonderful Anthology of American Folk Music – before, crucially, they were digitally cleaned up.

You can call it evocative. But frankly, when skilled audio engineers expend so much effort trying to improve the sound quality of archive field recordings so we can better appreciate the artistry, to set out in this age to recreate the low fidelity of the 20s and 30s can only be described as perverse.