L’Herbe de Détourne

Quirky Swiss label Bongo Joe can almost guarantee a splendid left-field time for all. This is no exception. The French folk experimentalist Ernest Bergez made his name as the solo Sourdure, but now helms the four-piece Sourdurent (French third-person plural; same pronunciation; clever!). Still rooted in his rugged native Auvergne and sung in the Occitan language, the music gets a fuller sound for studio and concert stage. Much of its character derives from Jacques Puech's cabrette, a small regional bagpipe, whose unsettling drone underlies fife, banjo, bass lute, violin, assorted electronic noises and, above all, Bergez’ sometimes almost deranged vocals to suggest a soundtrack to a dystopian medieval drama like Witchfinder General.

As well as rural France, their music can take you to North Africa, the Middle East or even the kind of fictitious hybrid where once 3 Mustaphas 3 cavorted. Four brief interludes serve almost as musical palate-cleansers to prepare you for the drama of madcap numbers like ‘La Dumenchada’ and ‘Franc de Bruch’, or the epic ‘Chamin Ne Vòl Pas’ and ‘Le Tonnerrez / Marche de Palladuc’. The Occitan-folk ambience inevitably conjures comparisons with vocal groups like San Salvador and Cocanha. Equally thrilling, this is more dislocated and demented.