Fricke’s Picks: Cajun Spice and Thrash

The Zydepunks — a New Orleans quintet with dueling accordions and fiddles instead of rock guitars — play a fast, whirling music that is not just zydeco and way more than punk. Their set at this year's New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival had the Cajun waltzers baffled. Everyone else just jumped for joy to the speed-core mélange of klezmer tornadoes, Balkan dances, Celtic reels and bayou-squeezebox war — also available, at high velocity, on the band's latest album, Exile Waltz (Nine Mile).