Album Details

• Artist: Genticorum
• Album: La Bibournoise
• Label: geniticorum.com
• Year of Release: 2009
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: patchen on 2009-02-19

As the driving force for the band, Pascal Gemme sure likes his stew thick and greasy. Combining Quebecois folk music with a skewed outsider artists' sensibility, all leaved with some cool lewis carrol-esque wordplay, Genitcorum (the band name itself is an absurd non-word, though it does sound a bit randy) sound traditional by way of hermetic, isolated dementia. "La Bibournoise" combines twisted but danceable tunes with obscure nuggets from rural highways past. The trio relies on swampy fiddles that keep one foot in local tradition, while with the other dipping into droning, warped world.

Vocalist/bassist/fiddler Alex de Grosbois-Garand, together with guitarist/ jaw harpist Yann Falquet share Gemme's taste for the surreal. The lyrics, mostly in French, build off of traditional folk song structures, but blend in so many nonsense words that they become the new crazy brother to the originals. "La Bibournoise" and "Les Culottes de V'lour," both based on old songs of love and betrayal, have a whimsy that even outstrips what other miners of the treacherous past, like, say The Band, might have done with them. "Hommage a' Andre Alain" pays tribute to the great fiddler while jiggling the time structure, making for once again a reverent, but skewed take.

Genticorum are a band steeped in history and mischief. That all three members are solid multi-instrumentalists means that literally hundreds of songs are up for grabs. "La Bibournoise" is a dizzying feat of chops as well as heart and goes down excellent with beer.

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