La Boulette Russe – Pas cher! (Jamendo)

Pas cher, indeed, as this mini-album was a free download at http://www.jamendo.com/en/download/album/21316. I read about Jamendo in an article in the Guardian a few weeks ago, and chose this more or less at random. Downloading whole albums on Jamendo is easy, but you can’t (or at least I couldn’t figure out how to, which isn’t necessarily the same thing) download single tracks without playing them at the same time, so it was difficult to take a wider sample.

I suppose the right spirit in which to approach Jamendo is not to expect slick, first-class performances, because you are bound to be disappointed. It is more like wandering into a pub and listening to a band you haven’t heard before. Sometimes it will be brilliant, sometimes it will be diabolical, but nearly always it will be interesting.

And interesting La Boulette Russe certainly are. They describe themselves as “ska punk festif”, which is fairly accurate – sometimes a bit like early Specials, but punkier, with some Dexy’s Midnight Runners (not just the music but the tang of desperation behind it). I loved the raucousness. The lack of musical finesse (which no-one would really deny) doesn’t make any difference – in fact, I tried to imagine “California Dream” with a competently played trumpet and it just wouldn’t have been the same. There is only one song which isn’t quite as good – the last one, “Vivre en paix”, where they get more serious and Clash-like. But overall well worth listening to.