Lo’Jo

Triban Lo’Jo is a group of modern French troubadours and performance artists, but beyond saying that Lo’Jo can’t easily be categorized.

Sometimes surrealistic and always quirky, its music reflects all that is truly cosmopolitan. Layered over punchy dub sounds is a sophisticated atmosphere swirling with French chanson, Gypsy accordion and violin, North African tribal rhythms and harmonies. Cabaret au Sauvage combines into a spontaneous-sounding heady mixture of carnival music, Gypsy swing, chanson, jazz, rock, and dub.

The lyrics (in French, English, Spanish, and Arabic) are a vivid poetry that instantly evokes the distant world-of-its-own atmosphere of avant-garde or Gypsy performance. The Romany intonations are carried by the intense smoky voice of Denis Péan, whose gravelly, fractured delivery has the resonance and manner of a well-traveled cabaret singer. Sisters Nadia and Yamina Nid El Mourid provide their shifting, shimmering North African harmonies, while the remainder of the troupe provides a richly textured instrumental backdrop that sounds simultaneously folksy and urbane.

Cabaret au Sauvage is Lo’Jo’s third U.S. release. With its deep weave of Western and African percussion, this is a bit "dubbier" than the previous outings but still engrained with passion. A single exposure to Lo’Jo has been known to transform a casual listener into a rabid fan. Currently on tour in America, Lo’Jo is a band simply not to be missed on record or stage. January takes them back to the deserts of North Africa for a music festival that arose in Timbuktu from the ashes of 3,000 rifles and handguns that were burned in a symbolic "Flame of Peace."