Moncton-hailing Acadian trio Les Hay Babies are back with their fourth studio album and follow-up to 2020's Boît aux lettres.
Out today via Simone Records, Tintamarre was conceived of during the then-ongoing Montreal winter in April 2023, when Katrine Noël jokingly suggested mid-rehearsal, "We can't seem to find time to make this album. Why don't we go to Louisiana or something?"
While bandmates Julie Aubé and Vivianne Roy apparently missed the joke, the band booked flights to the Bayou that very evening. There, they were offered lodgings in an ancestral house just outside Lafayette, complete with a farm, a garden, a sugarcane field and loaner instruments.
Boîte aux lettres was a concept album, but Tintamarre is more thematic in nature, honing in on the pride in the distinctive voice of pan-Acadian identity and its innate joie de vivre. Les Hay Babies' fourth album captures that spirit and the eclecticism of Louisiana, with influences spanning from country to classic rock and subject matter traversing everything from community to recipes.
Listen to Tintamarre below.