Sheesham and Lotus and 'Son
Album: The High Stepping Music Of Sheesham and Lotus and 'Son
Label: SepiaPhone
Tracks: 15
Website: http://www.sheeshamandlotus.com

SLS-ville is kinda-like an imaginary crossroads, situated halfway up the mountainside somewhere between Appalachia and the Mississippi, a meeting place where ragtime, jugband, blues and old-time collide and collude, and where makin' energy-fuelled high-steppin' music is the order of the day. 1929, the 2012 debut album by the Canadian trio Sheesham and Lotus and 'Son, landed up on my CD player quite by chance barely a year ago, since which time it's hardly left it - for whenever I need a fix of serious good-time, well there just ain't no substitute for these guys' irresistible musical high-jinks. They strut their stuff like there was no tomorrow (well, there ain't!), and they've got the vintage vibe down deeper than the proverbial T. But although, as with 1929, this new offering was evidently recorded in authentic fashion, this time it's given a stereo mix that I'm tempted to dub "3D sepiatint", one that provides just enough in the way of enticing extra detail and revels in a gloriously audible separation of parts where there's so much switching and swatching of instrumental entries that it's hard to keep up (and great fun tryin'!). Needless to say, the trusty ol' sousaphone underpins virtually everything (tho' not ever as a ploddingly galumphing oompah bass line) - everything in this case meaning fiddle, harmonica, banjo, kazoo and the fabulously-named contrabass harmoniphonium (something like a heavy-duty mouth-organ with a horn on the end), the latter wheezing away companionably - most notably on opening cut Chinquipin.

The disc's menu splits itself fairly evenly across a gamut of tempos, with a sizeable quotient of rollicking toe-ticklesome, foot-tapping tunes both well-loved (Dallas Rag), more obscure (Sales Tax Toddle) and downright weird (Salt & Pepper Drag), interspersed with more leisurely-paced but still indelibly quirky pieces like the fulsome waltz-time Up The Wooden Hills (which sports a "marching French horn" intro). Just under half the tracks feature vocals - these are highly varied in style and delivery, from Jimmie Rodgers' Mississippi River Blues, which contains a deliciously strident harmony part and whistling infills, through to the drunksome drawl of Got The Jake Leg Too. Then there's the gruff, bluff Swimming Blues, which it turns out isn't a traditional number at all but an original credited to Teilhard Frost (might we assume this to be the real name of one of the band?). And for standout status I can't fail to mention the trio's ultra-infectious swift-chugalong version of the Carters' My Dixie Darling, and as a show-stopping closer how about the cathartic, wildly delirious vocal yell on Green Valley Waltz?

SLS ain't no misguided, bandwagon-jumping empty-headed retro-cum-tribute outfit; these guys' grasp of the idiom is keen and true, and what's more they bring it all right up to date. Hey, this record is just sensational…!

David Kidman