Those of you who know me know that I tend toward voracious acquisition of music. So I was pretty sure I could not be surprised when my wife said she was getting me some Cajun solo record by a famous player that she thinks I never heard of. I rattled off a bunch of great and fairly obscure things I thought she might have come across (Varise Connor's essential and kind of rare disc, or maybe Octa Clark's fairly obscure home recordings) but she kept saying no, no.

My wife, being a genius, had managed to find a cd of solo cajun triangle by Christina Balfa. The cd is done with a good sense of humor and nails the genre (down to the faux self-serious overwritten liner notes by Dirk Powell). The playing is seriously done, which makes the whole thing even better realized. 45 minutes of solo Cajun triangle. It is listenable... but I am not sure I would say so for everyone. But next time I am in a jam I definitely will play the tunes off the album, in order.