La Caravane Passe

(Website)

The band was formed in 2001 by Toma Feterman, who has ancestors of Polish, Rumanian and Jewish Russian origins. A self taught multi-instrumentalist, Toma sings as well as playing the banjo and the trumpet.

After initially performing music that covers a wide range from punk to French “chanson”, he decides to gather a group to perform music from Eastern Europe – a way of returning to his roots. At the beginning, the musicians were friends that played traditional songs. He meets Olivier Llugany in January 2001. Llugs started playing the fiscorn (a traditional bass bugle from Catalunia) at a young age, in the Sardane orchestras of his region (coblas).
As a result, this unusual instrument has been introduced into the project – it has certain similarities with the tubas of the brass bands from the Balkans.

It is thanks to Llugs that the group has that particular brass sound. Between 2001 and 2003, the band becomes popular in Paris, acquiring a reputation as a celebratory gypsy-klezmer ensemble. They can be found on all the stages of the Paris musical underground scene.

La Caravane Passe plays several times a week in places like l’Olympic, Les Trois Arts, Le Café Montmartre… The group also participates quite regularly in cabaret evenings where they meet and accompany a big variety of circus acts. During 2002, La Caravane Passe creates, together with Môh Aroussi, « le Vrai Faux Mariage » (the Real Fake Wedding), a kind of gypsy rock cabaret performance.

In 2003 Ben Body, a great friend of Toma Feterman, becomes bass and double bass player for the band.
2004 is the great turning point in the group’s career : that year, Pat Gigon, Ben Body and Cyril « Zinzin » Moret join La Caravane Passe : the set-up is complete.

videos of their new album : Ahora in Da Futur :

le 1er teaser Zinzin Moretto
le 2eme teaser Interllugs
le 3ème teaser Like a Sextoy
le 4ème teaser Moustache on the Stage

Albums

AHORA IN DA FUTUR

Label: MAKASOUND
Distribution in France: PIAS
Release date: May 03, 2010

We had left LA CARAVANE PASSE in their imaginary village of Plèchti (last CD « Velkom Plèchti » in 2008). Since then, the band has been touring all across France and the old Continent. For their 3rd release, La Caravane has taken on a new look, electrified and transformed into a machine to zigzag through time and space. Directed this time by Camille Ballon (No One is Innocent, Java, etc.) the group has taken a few clandestine travelers on board: Rachid Taha, R.Wan, Erika Serre, Marko Markovic, La fanfare Ziveli – a bright and varied bunch ready to embark for another journey into a multi-coloured neverland: singers, electric guitars, bass and keyboards mix with gypsy guitars, brass and mandolins, producing “chanson française”, gypsy sounds, rap/world, Balkan ska and electro rock. That same adventurous mix can be found in the lyrics, with a homemade and world-inspired slang combining French and English, Serbian and Spanish, Romani and German. A trans-European melting pot telling of journeys beyond borders, of cultures and people. And if our cyber nomads were just shaping the future “homo Europaneo”?“Steam punk” and “retro-futurism” come to mind – and all of it can be found on stage where the band travels through the centuries in their costumes, creating a festive, crazy and timeless spectacle.

La Caravane Passe - AHORA IN DA FUTUR

Velkom Plechti

Label: Tzig'Art - TZIG 21421
Distribution in France: L'Autre Distribution
Release date: November 22, 2007

With the 13 cosmopolitan and celebratory songs of the group’s album VELKOM PLECHTI! , La Caravane Passe presents a little village that is familiar to all of us, a village we know without ever having set foot in it : Plèchti . In order to complete our introduction to this place which is finally not that far away, “VELKOM PLECHTI! ” also makes us discover its language : the ” plèchti ” or ” plèchtian ” (the debate is open). Sounds from Russia, Italy, Spain, England, the old Yougoslavia reach our ears … they characterize the cultural changes that Plèchti has experienced through the generations. The group, whose home turf is the stage, has worked intensely to recreate their sound in the studio. They have gathered around them the instruments that were needed to add the little extra that makes you want to travel. Between the brass of the Ziveli Orkestar, the gypsy Rumanian cymbalum played by Fabien Andreescu, and the chafing voice of TiMike (the latest addition, ex Mister Gang), you are not too sure whether they have all come to Plèchti, or if Plèchti has travelled around the world to come to you…

La Caravane Passe - Velkom Plechti

On Tour