Pieds Nus

Grégory Audrain, Jean-Marie Lemasson and Armel Goupil are the three multi-instrumentalists that make up French fusion group Soadan. After spending the last four years travelling around West Africa, they bring us Pieds Nus (Barefoot), the band’s second album.

Inspired by their voyages, it seems the lyrics, composed in French, are among the only remnants of the band’s Brittany origins. Situating themselves as passengers in their texts, themes of travel, nature, culture and social justice are recurrent, with a homage to Nelson Mandela tucked into the tracklist among the souvenirs of their journeying (‘Robben Island’). Otherwise though, the music on Pieds Nus has kept very little of the trio’s mostly conservatoire-based beginnings intact. The group are heavily influenced by maloya, a music from the island of La Réunion, which ironically was once banned by the French authorities as it was considered to pose too much of a threat to their rule. But here, the music is celebrated, woven together with elements of Creole blues, Gnawa and Afrobeat to create an album that is a real pleasure to listen to. Goupil’s marimba is particularly effective, providing a lulling and trance-like thread running through the album.