Junkyard Crew - Life Slides (2021)

The expression can mean "the slides of life" as well as "the slides of life", or to speak of the sliding life - not to mention the slide guitar, omnipresent throughout this album.

Slices of life, then. Of those which tell our world, from the point of view of the one who sings them, of course, but not only. As in the song Boney Spree, the story of a nightmare meeting that turns into a nightmare, told from a female perspective.

Obviously, Manouche Fournier is no slouch when it comes to sharing his own tribulations. Going Down's heavy beat tells us about friendship and the deleterious effects of manipulation. Still in this mix of rap and bottleneck, Troublations is a dialogue between two friends - one trying to demonstrate to the other that life is worth it, no matter what. On the solar side, Piti Filé Gumbo tells us about Louisiana, but also the nostalgia for having left it.

This part of the world is of course one of the foundations of Junkyard Crew, if only for the band's instrumentation: the sousaphone (iconic tuba of New Orleans brass bands) and the drums, which originated there. Then this resonator guitar dear to the blues musicians of this American South where French still resonates with Creoles and Cajuns ...

And of course the brass, always - subtly arranged by the other founder of the project, tubist Jean Crozat, also co-composer of several titles. We thus find them sometimes tortured in the spiritual Death Comes Creeping; sometimes powerful and luminous in an electro-blues aesthetic with That Grin of Yours.

The last touch, or rather the touch, is that of the Reunionese percussionist and singer David Doris. His hands and his choirs give life to La Facture, a piece in which the Land of Lights struggles to make its inhabitants proud. He can also be found on the hot Whatcha Gonna Do - Reloaded, where the theme of global warming is entitled to a Blaxploitation arrangement of a sample by… Duke Ellington.

It all ends with the rap ballad That’s How I Wish. The story of a wrongdoer in the face of stronger than him and whose conclusion could sum up the point of the album: the struggle continues, but you have to know how to choose your fights ...