Les Triaboliques

Les Triaboliques, a group comprised of multi-instrumentalists Ben Mandelson, Lu Edmonds and Justin Adams, has been dubbed "a pleasingly ragged supergroup" by the U.K. newspaper The Guardian. However, the musicians see themselves as like-minded seekers who, as Adams puts it, share "parallel musical lives." "We are all inspired by the great mash of 20th-century American music," agrees Edmonds, "but somehow the three of us wandered a bit further, traveling in remote parts of the world—Africa, Asia, the Middle East, the Balkans, Siberia, Central Asia, etc.—and finding more musical mash we liked for the same reasons." The three artists' paths toward Les Triaboliques were winding. Justin Adams has recorded two solo albums or World Village, Desert Road and Soul Science, but is perhaps best known for his inventive guitaristry with the likes of Robert Plant, Sinead O’Connor and Jah Wobble and for his production work with Tuareg rockers and fellow World Village artists Tinariwen. Ben Mandelson’s past lives found him in the company of such bands as Magazine, 3 Mustaphas 3 and Billy Bragg’s Blokes. Today he is admired for his tireless advocacy of all things world music, spreading pan-cultural artistry as director of the London-based Globe Style Records and as producer of such diverse bands as Varttina, Boiled in Lead and the Klezmatics. And Lu Edmonds first came to prominence as a guitarist with the pioneering British punk band the Damned, and subsequently built his rep with the Mekons, Shriekback, Siberian throat-singing group Yat-Kha and, like fellow Triab Mandelson, 3 Mustaphas 3 and Billy Bragg. Edmonds sums it up by saying, "we must be three of the more dusty guitarists in Olde England. It was a very interesting idea to get together and see would happen."