Swiss band Mama Rosin takes inspiration from Cajun, Caribbean and Mexican styles, mixing them with punk attitude and rock 'n' roll. [Provided to China Daily]

Cajun music and China are two things that normally don't meet in the same sentence, but a little band from Switzerland called Mama Rosin might change that.

Mama Rosin, the brainchild of guitar and banjo player Robin Girod and accordion player Cyril Yeterain, are set to bring their brand of Cajun fusion punk rock to eight different Chinese cities as part of the Francophone Festival, a music and film festival held by the French-speaking countries of Europe.

Yeterain says that Mama Rosin was very excited to come to China, especially since they were invited by the Swiss embassy. At the same time, Yeterain says that the band is unsure how they will be received in China.

"I think maybe no body knows what Cajun music is, that's what I think before meeting people, we haven't played yet, and we don't know what people will think," Yeterain says. "We had a press conference and the journalists were very curious in our instruments because they have never seen them before."

The instruments the journalists fawned over, Yeterain says, were an old-fashioned Cajun accordion, a banjo and something normally found in folk music in the US: a washboard.

Formed in Geneva back in 2007, Mama Rosin is named after an old Cajun song from the 1930s. Yeterain describes the selection of the band name as a very important part to what the band is about - a mix of a Caribbean influences sung by a really small black woman accompanied with a Cajun accordion.

"It's more like Aruba's music, which is unique for the Cajun style," Yeterain says. "This strange song, this strange mix of influences, we had a feeling it represented who we are.

"We're not from Louisiana, we're from Switzerland, and we don't pretend to play the genuine Cajun style. That's not the goal, the goal is to take inspiration from Cajun style, Caribbean style, south of Mexico, and mix it with punk attitude and rock 'n' roll that we heard from our parents records such as the Rolling Stones.

Mama Rosin's main influence, Cajun music, dates to 18th-century French settlers living in the Louisiana bayous.

Eventually the Cajun-style music would fuse with Caribbean and other regional sounds to create something called zydeco. The Mama Rosin mix is strongly zydeco and Cajun.

Yeterain and Girod initially bonded over their mutual love of the same music - and ducks, which appear in tattoos on both men. They started the band with drummer Power Van Fischer, but because of the recent birth of her child, Fischer has left the band. Mama Rosin now gets its beats from French drummer Xavier Bray.

After the band's Saturday night show in Beijing, it wraps up the China tour this week with a swing to the south, ending in Macao on Saturday.

Yeterain says that he believes the language barrier aside, they are reaching Chinese music lovers.

"This music doesn't come from the brain but from the heart. It's not hard to be caught by it, if you decide you like it, it's easy to start dancing," Yeterain says. "The best way to introduce ourselves is to just play."

ericjou@chinadaily.com.cn