Joy

Description

When extreme Eastern sounds invade jazz, rock, or electro. Unusual and captivating. The music of the Far East, with its high-pitched intonations, raw sounds, and contemplative aesthetic, remains hermetic to Western audiences but offers a blank canvas for pioneering minds, inspiring more accessible hybridizations. This is the case with three intriguing projects just released in France, which twist Asian traditions with unusual boldness. With Peemaï (1), a shapeshifting Lao jazz group (guitar, bass, sax, and drums), we descend the Mekong, between bucolic swing and electro rock, following the melodic meanders of molam, a rural blues. Gongs, mouth organs, and charmingly old-fashioned Laotian voices spice up this restless cruise where inventive groove constantly surprises us, whether through a soaring brass drop, gnaoui karkabous, or furious trip-hop rapids. In a more rock vein, Moon Gogo solidifies, on their ironically titled second album Joy (2), the foundations of a striking Franco-Korean marriage: that of Federico Pellegrini (ex-Little Rabbits, French Cowboy), a twilight guitarist and singer, and E’Joung-Ju, a geomungo player. When the keyboards don’t overpower the ancient instrument and the voice hesitates, almost plaintive, in the face of the abrupt snapping of silk strings, their punk reverie captivates with its intimate, raw, strangely haunting tone. Will the new label 180 g encourage this kind of mixed collaboration? In the meantime, its Nantes-based founders embrace their Japanese inclination and present us with Ajate (3), the orchestra of a Tokyoite fused with afrobeat and bamboo, in which he has sculpted a homemade balafon and a cousin instrument of the n’goni and shamisen lute. Enough to groove joyfully, drinking in the power of African funk and the ancestral songs of the archipelago: between shrill onomatopoeias, Noh-style declamations, and electrified distortions, fantasy reigns. (Telerama)