

Their decadent, potent cocktail of jazz, electro, hedonistic beats and vintage sounds defies simple categorisation but, needless to say, delivers with a punch.

Growing from its core members to a seven piece outfit on stage, Caravan Palace is a perennial festival favorite.

At the crossroads of the exuberance of old school jazz and the hedonism of modern clubs, their music has gathered more than a billion and a half streams across all platforms, is all over TikTok and their single “Lone Digger” is certified Gold by the RIAA.įor all its viral successes, it is the Parisian band’s live performances that etched their legacy. All accomplished musicians, their shared love for electronic dance music pushed them to combine those influences into a new form. Turn it up and move your feet.A true word-of-mouth sensation, Caravan Palace keeps rising unrelentingly.

However, if you fancy putting a smile on your face and dancing your ass off, this is a pretty suitable soundtrack. This is more upbeat, and occasionally feels a bit one-paced. OK, say the cynics, it’s accessible and catchy all right, but isn’t it a bit gimmicky? Well, no more so than Moby’s 'Play’ album, which conquered the world by taking old blues records and melding their spirit and soul to modern electronic music. That spirit comes through loud and clear, combined with that certain je ne sais quoi that French artists bring to pretty much everything they do (it may be a cliche, but that don’t mean it ain’t true). That’s not to say that the mood doesn’t get more abstract on occasions: the relatively downbeat ‘Aftermath’ features distracted scatting and woozy, disconnected atmospherics.īut overall this music reminds the listener that jazz was originally sexed-up good-times music for dancing and romancing. This record sacrifices Saint Etienne’s late-night melancholy for an altogether more in-your-face approach. When the likes of Saint Etienne melded jazz and house in the 90s, theirs was a cooler, more laidback hybrid. She also provides the occasional hip-house-style rap and also provides a certain hip-hop swagger and attitude. Hooky piano and horn riffs are complemented, on the likes of 'Wonderland’, by the sassy vocals of Zoe Colotis. The band is a big draw on the festival circuit, and it’s easy to imagine tunes like the anthemic, synth-strafed ‘Comics’ making perfect sense in a sweaty tent at four in the morning. This is instantly accessible music, not for chin-strokers or music snobs. And its combination of soulful vocals, lurching stop-start dynamics and unabashed dancefloor populism is reminiscent of the years when Fatboy Slim ruled the nation’s charts and dancefloors. Though aimed at modern dancefloors, it is based on the sort of swinging, syncopated, pre-war hot jazz that’s the best part of a century old now. Robot, the third album by Parisian retro-futurists Caravan Palace is a record out of time in several ways.
