"Country’s like tango," declares Philippe Cohen-Solal, "It’s the same kind of challenge encouraging people to rethink their attitudes to country music. The thing is, there are so many cliches involved." Cohen-Solal, the pioneering founder of cutting-edge independent label Ya Basta!, is a man who puts his money and his production skills where his mouth is. And he wasted no time in heading off across the Atlantic to gain a greater insight into country and other traditional sounds from America’s Deep South.

In the summer of 2004, Cohen-Solal put the first part of his plan into action, shouldering his guitar and signing up for a series of ‘flat-picking’ lessons at Maryville College in Appalachia. After that, he moved on to Nashville, Tennessee, hooking up with Bucky Baxter, a steel guitar virtuoso who ended up co-producing the project with him. Baxter opened up his recording studio and his address book, giving Cohen-Solal a number of precious contacts. All that remained was for Cohen-Solal to sit down and start composing the elements for Moonshine Sessions (named after the illicit alcohol typically brewed in the Tennessee region).

Somehow, in between two major international tours and a new album with Gotan Project, Cohen-Solal managed to find time to head back out to Nashville for two long recording sessions. Here, he worked with the ‘crème de la crème’ of the rural music scene, recruiting crack guitar aces from the local bush. The producer vowed he was going "to spend an hour deep in the countryside" and the album Moonshine Sessions is just that!

The twelve tracks on Moonshine Sessions (which include two rather incongruous covers of Abba and The Sex Pistols!) come in at sixty minutes exactly - and that’s counting the background sounds recorded live on the spot. The Moonshine Sessions are interspersed with birdsong, whinnying horses, bursts of laughter from the musicians and the sound of an old vinyl LP crackling away on a turntable. And the compilation ends with a highly atmospheric track of "night noises." 

"I wanted to work around the joint idea of nature and spleen," Cohen-Solal explains, I wanted this album to sound euphoric and melancholic at the same time. I’ve dreamt about the countryside for years now - and this album’s my way of going out there and bringing a bit of it back home!"