Perceptive Travel,
CD Review
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Lo'Jo is a group of six musicians from Angers, France that have been together for more than two decades now yet still manage to sound fresh and on the money. Hard to categorize, they might be said to be peripheral to the world music scene yet give the impression that that they would be equally at home performing with theatre groups or circus acts—indeed, this is exactly how they first started out.
Lo'Jo's highly distinctive sound—perhaps best described as "voluptuous"—was forged years ago, hinging on the gruff Gallic vocals of leader Dennis Péan and the swirling impassioned close–harmony chorus of sisters Nadia and Yamina. Péan's various keyboards are augmented by Yamina's saxophone, along with superbly inventive violin and occasional flourishes of kora in front of a tight, yet spacious, rhythm section. The songs unfold like fables, sung mainly in French but also with fragments of Spanish, Arabic and English, with Péan's role as world–weary griot telling uncomfortable truths. With echoes of the Sahara, West Africa and the Middle East, and shades of blues, jazz, rap and even flamenco, this could come easily across as pretentious or indigestible, yet somehow Lo'Jo manages to make it all sound convincingly uncontrived and natural. The band members themselves describe their approach as that of a musical caravan, and this is probably the best way of looking at it.
Card–carrying internationalists, Lo'Jo have always been adventurous and keen to embrace musical experimentation. As a fan of the band for at least the last fifteen years, I can vouch that with CosmoPhono they have produced yet another album of distinctive, yet intriguingly indefinable, wild and beautiful music.
07/01/10
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