WOMAD

Lo'Jo

From Algeria, France

Free-spirited combo that goes wherever it pleases

"Our music is an anarchic garden we try to cultivate so as to make it both beautiful and wild. We are like farmers: we play with time." So says Denis Péan, the sandpaper-voiced, trilby-topped chief singer/songwriter with Angers-based collective Lo'Jo. His is an effective description; their music retains a wildness, an unwillingness to conform to any external pressures. They're pretty much outsiders themselves, working according to their own time. As such, their music refuses to be tethered down, floating in an orbit of folk, North African, jazz and chanson that's both original and absorbing, with Denis's gravel tones lightened by the striking voices of Berber sisters Nadia and Yamina Nid El Mourid. Not that Lo'Jo exist solely in their own little bubble, though. Not only did they co-found the legendary Festival In The Desert, they've also collaborated with Tinariwen and worked with guitarist Justin Adams. Sometimes they let others into their glorious garden.

(Biography written by Nige Tassell 2012)

Lo'Jo- Bazar Savant

Lo'Jo's » Myspace Page