Domino!

The luminous joy of the dance on the album cover — set at the landmark Van Horne viaduct in Montréal — is audible in this tasty mélange of Québécois folk music and jazz, the latest offering from the award-winning La Bottine Souriante. The energetic 11-person ensemble deploys plucked and bowed string instruments, horns, keyboards, accordion, harmonica and percussion, as well as the impelling podorythmie (foot-tapping) of French Canada bolstered by stomps, claps and shouts. And seven of them vocalise, in French and in turlutte, the onomatopoeic imitation of fiddle lines. The group continue to source traditional folk tunes as well as the work of more recent Québécois songwriters. But global touring has prompted the import of guest artists and music from elsewhere, represented here by Swedish nyckelharpist Erik Rydvall, Italian accordionist Riccardo Tesi and Irish accordionist Sharon Shannon. French Canadian jigs and reels are close cousins to the Irish, and there’s much in the way of satisfying instrumental passages between the singing sections. The crafty brass arrangements by tenor saxophonist Jean Fréchette achieve a successful integration with the folk instruments, updating and energising the music without, for the most part, obscuring or compromising the folksiness.