Lo’Jo

ce soir là …

World Village

In the Loire Valley region of central France that gave birth to their eccentric troupe, the members of Lo’Jo rubbed shoulders with their neighbors’ ghosts: da Vinci, Rabelais, Gainsbourg. The pedigree of that soil wore off -- da Vinci’s definition of Renaissance Man diversity; Rabelais’ love of the revolutionary power of carnival and laughter, of the grandness of hyperbole; Gainsbourg’s smoky appreciation of a world of sexuality, tempered by the Gallic confidence in his own Parisian café charms.

In 20 years as Lo’Jo, front man and singer Denis Péan and instrumentalist Richard Bourrean have taken these traits and loves and borne them through the ruinous geography of the pan-Francophonic world. At times, Lo’Jo can be something of a world-music-a-thon, cramming as many regions into a song as possible, though unlike some world-blitzers, there are also moments of relative calm. “Mon Amour” and “Chaque Humain” act mostly as interstitial pieces, with Péan alone on the piano, and the solidly grounded “Tiene la Bandera” (located, in this case, in a theatrical tango soundtrack) rests on European laurels without sub-Saharan drums or Turkish flutes.

In a world where everyone with ProTools thinks they’re globalized, it’s refreshing to hear a world-fusion ensemble capable of playing so many hands thanks to travel and on-the-spot absorption, rather than being a world (-wide Web) music group. Lo’Jo has brought groups such as Gangbé Brass Band and Tinariwen (with whom Lo’Jo helped organize 2003’s installment of the Festival in the Desert event) to the attention of Europe and now the U.S. Along with newer fellow travelers, such as the more avant-garde sound seeker DJ/Rupture (whose Special Gunpowder album is the 21^st-century version of Lo’Jo’s seek-and-disseminate musical hostelling), Lo’Jo is a great example of a group able to combine global geography and technical virtuosity into a curious yet well-defined sense of musical self.

by Justin Hopper