Biography
Lo'Jo embody a conceptual vision just as much as they produce recorded music. Denis Péan, who sings and plays keyboards, launched the project in Angers, a modest French town, during 1982, and the collective has since participated in multimedia productions, circus performances, political causes, and even organized a festival amid the Malian desert, marking them as far from ordinary. After existing for one year under the complete name Lo'Jo Triban, violinist and kora player Richard Bourreau joined, allowing the sound to coalesce. For the next several years the group performed at local gatherings with a shifting roster of musicians, incorporating dancers and film into their presentations. By the close of the 1980s they were appearing across Europe and had traveled twice to the United States alongside an artists' collective for shows in New York. Remarkably, their first studio recording did not occur until 1992, resulting in Fils de Zamal, which surfaced the next year together with G7 of Destruction & Artisans of Peace, an explicit declaration of political conviction. Momentum gathered in 1995 when singer and saxophonist Yamina Nid El Mourid arrived with her sister Nadia, introducing a pronounced North African dimension. The refreshed lineup cut "Sin Acabar" in 1996 under the guidance of English producer Justin Adams, and in 1997 they finished the Mojo Radio album, again with Adams. Released in 1998, the record attracted widespread attention within the world-music audience, securing a place on the WOMAD touring circuit that brought them before international listeners and made them a standout attraction at the inaugural WOMADUSA. Far from pausing, they next oversaw an album by Benin's Gangbe Brass Band. In 1999 the band traveled to Bamako, Mali, to begin their subsequent project, produced once more by Adams. Boheme de Cristal reached listeners in 2000 (with a U.S. edition in 2001), after which the delayed American release of Mojo Radio appeared in 2002; the group then embarked on another American tour. While in Mali they encountered the nomadic Tuareg musicians of Tinariwen and helped shape the Festival of the Desert, staged in the Sahara during January 2001. Experiences in North Africa and a subsequent tour alongside Tinariwen shaped the following studio album, Au Cabaret Sauvage, issued in 2002. After the 2003 live collection Ce Soir Là...Live, assembled from concerts in France and Quebec, drummer Franck Vaillant entered the lineup in place of longtime member Mathieu Rousseau. The stylistically wide-ranging sixth album, Bazar Savant, included contributions from Tinariwen, bandoneonist Cesar Stroscio, and reggae performer Bunny Barrington Dudley, while tilting further toward rock textures. Marking the ensemble's twenty-fifth year, the 2007 anthology Tu Connais Lo'Jo coincided with three consecutive nights at La Maroquinerie in Paris that also featured art installations and poetry readings. Cosmophono, released in 2009, adopted a darker, largely acoustic approach and was followed by extensive touring. Lo'Jo continued intermittent activity before returning in 2012 with the collaborative Cinema el Mundo, which enlisted Argentinian duo Las Hermanas Caronni and British musician Robert Wyatt. Their next recording, 310 Lunes from 2014, celebrated thirty-two years together by presenting one disc of songs arranged for chamber brass alongside a second disc containing the previously unavailable 1990 debut The International Courabou. Maintaining their trajectory of change, the band embraced a more pop-centered direction on 2017's Fonetiq Flowers.
Albums
