Times (London), Lure of the Lo life >>
FRENCH BAND LO'JO FIND INSPIRATION DEEP IN THE COUNTRYSIDE. NIGEL WILLIAMSON PAID A VISIT
THE FIRST TIME I saw the French band Lo'Jo it was obvious they were special. They were playing at the Festival in the Desert, deep in the western Sahara, a two day drive from the nearest habitation. There they spent a fortnight living in a tent in the middle of nowhere while they built a stage on which they performed for a smattering of nomadic Tuareg warriors on camels and a small posse of European backpackers.
Somehow they had persuaded the European Union to come up with the funding, chartered a aircraft and organised the whole crazy circus themselves. But this, I was to learn, was typical of the unconventional Lo'Jo style.
The approach to their music as they described it seemed, in its idealistic way, almost as outmoded as the lifestyle of the Tuareg nomads with whom we were sharing the desert. They explained that back home, they lived in a Sixties-style commune in an old farmhouse deep in rural France. From this base they planned their counter-cultural raids on the outside world with shows combining music, theatre and magic in the sort of extravaganza we would once upon a time have called a "happening".
Out in the desert they invited me to stay with them in the Loire - and two years later, the release of Au Cabaret Sauvage, the band's fourth album, presents the ideal opportunity to visit Lo'Jo in their village, just outside Angers. Produced by Justin Adams (currently the guitarist in Robert Plant's band), Au Cabaret Sauvage is an album of remarkable pan-cultural delirium (see review right). The intelligent and lyrical songs of the tribe's leader, Denis Pean, draw on French chanson, but are delivered in a voice somewhere between Tom Waits and Ivor Cutler.
The backing vocals of the French-Algerian sisters Nadia and Yamina Nid el Mourid add a mesmerising, Arabic flavour. The violin of Richard Bourreau soars with gypsy passion and the exoticism is emphasised by the African-influenced rhythms of the bassist Kham Meslien and drummer Mathieu Rousseau.
In America, where Au Cabaret Sauvage was released at the end of 2002, Billboard hailed the record as one of the great world-music releases of the year. Now comes its release in Britain, where the group already has a cult following, built via import sales and radio play from such globally-minded DJs as Charlie Gillett and Andy Kershaw.
We arrive at the Lo'Jo residency in time for supper. There are traditional, rustic stone floors and beamed ceilings, while the furnishings are a mixture of Arabesque and African artefacts, collected on the group's travels. A huge log fire burns in an ancient brick fireplace in the centre of the kitchen.
Another group from Grenoble are also staying in the house's rambling upper floors and the local wine merchant has dropped by with several cases of his finest cru, which he remains to taste. Everyone takes a hand in the preparation of the meal and there are eventually more than 20 of us who sit down to a five-course supper.
I wonder if it is like this every night. "Mais oui. Toujours," Pean says.
The following morning, after a pleasant ramble through the neighbouring vineyards, he recounts the band's strange history. "When we started in the early 1980s I had no house, no money and Lo'Jo had no concerts. I was sleeping on other people's floors," he recalls. Yet gradually around him, in this unlikely provincial setting, there developed a coterie of talented and committed counter culturalists.
The average Lo'Jo show would feature not only music but acrobats, street theatre, mime, magicians and trapeze artists.
By the early Nineties the group's line-up had stabilised and they were finally getting noticed by the Parisian-based music industry. Yet it was a false dawn.
After the release of the first Lo'Jo album, their record label, FNAC Musique, went bankrupt. They might have split. Instead they went back to their roots, touring European festivals and working on a multimedia show with the film activists ZUR, until they got a new record deal. The breakthrough eventually came in 1997 with the release of their second album, Mojo Radio, which established them as firm favourites on the world-music circuit. Shortly afterwards, they cemented their reputation with a storming performance at the Womad festival.
By then, the local mayor back in Angers had provided Lo'Jo with a house. "At first they thought we were mad, bad and dangerous to know. But we're now very much accepted as part of the local community," Pean explains. In return, the group spends much of its time on music projects in local schools. They've also been making a CD with the inmates from a nearby prison.
As if to prove their civic respectability, the following afternoon the mayor drops by with his family for tea and cakes. "We are very proud of our Lo'Jo," he says.
The idea of communal living attracted many rock groups in the 1960s, when everyone from Traffic to the Incredible String Band seemed to be "getting it together in the country". Yet it always seemed to end in tears and recriminations.
How have Lo'Jo managed to make the communal lifestyle work? "To me music comes from a sense of community. That's why we live together as a family," Pean says.
"We all wanted to be in the countryside. We didn't want to go to Paris and be part of the mainstream. We wanted to find a new way to organise our lives. The way we live is very conducive to creativity."
That night, they play in the local village hall and the entire community is present. There are grandmothers in wheelchairs and toddlers in pushchairs. Yet the flamboyant mix of world- music influences has the conservative local citizenry dancing every bit as enthusiastically as a Womad audience.
"We were more nervous playing for the village than when we appeared in London at the Barbican," Pean says afterwards. "But I think the new record is our best yet.
We always had good ideas. This time we have realised them."
On the back of the success of other French bands such as Air and Daft Punk, does pop stardom finally beckon for Lo'Jo? Pean looks worried for a moment. "With any luck it's far too late for that."
Au Cabaret Sauvage is released on Emma/Discovery on Monday
01/28/03
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