Mama Rosin

Take the Cajun music of the American South, add a hefty dose of Punk attitude and blend in a host of other influences picked up in the course of years of travelling, Rockabilly, Zydeco, Calypso, Brasilian Forro, amongst many other types of music. That, in a nutshell, is the sound of Mama Rosin: hot, exhilarating, wild and lyrical all at the same time, and entirely their own.

Cyril Yeterian and Robin A. Girod were Les Frères Souchet and played Irish sort of folky stuff until at a Folk festival in France they ran into an English Punk band that featured a melodeon as a lead instrument. Whilst diatonic as well as chromatic accordions are an integral part of Swiss Folk music, their tone is different to that of a proper Cajun melodeon. Cyril was so smitten with the instrument that he had his own made by none other than the master melodeon builder Marc Savoy in Eunice, Louisiana. Adding a percussionist, Power Van Fischer, they set about discovering their very own patch of Cajun country.

"If you come from Geneva, you come from nowhere, there's no real Swiss identity," Cyril Yeterian told the British roots music magazine fRoots. "Geneva is an international city. Yet for the people in the city, we really come from nowhere, we live in the countryside outside Geneva, on the edge of a swamp and grow our own fruit and vegetables. We don't pretend that we're modernising Cajun music. That's not why we do this. I just want to communicate my love for the music and put my energy into connecting that with people. We want to carry on making a party for people." "We want to create our own tradition," adds Robin. "We never make a set list before we get to a gig. We always get the feel of the place first and then we play what the people will like."

Mama Rosin have released three albums to date, "Tu as Perdu Ton Chemin", "Brule Lentement" (both Voodoo Rhythm Records) and "Black Robert" (Gut Feeling Records). They have toured throughout Europe and vowed the audiences of many a festival, including quite a few in the UK. They have also founded their own record label, Moi J'Connaie Records, dedicated to the release of classic roots music, including collections of – as they put it "hypnotic Cajun and obscure Zydeco", Southern Italian folk songs and an album called "Reverend Beatman's Dusty Cabinet – Wild, Rare, Scratchy, Burlesque, Country, Garage, Tango, Punk".

On stage on Sunday, 22 & Tuesday, 24 July between 6pm and 9.30pm.

For more information visit www.myspace.com/mamarosin.