JUJU – De Roes Club, Ghent (Belgium) – 9 March 2023

Italian musician and songwriter GIOELE VALENTI is a bit of a centipede.
He makes records under the moniker of Herself, Lay Llamas and Juju,
making a name for himself in and out of the Fuzz Club family, for some
time now.

One of the greatest recognitions of his major talent came a couple of years
ago when he went on tour with the famous American symphonic pop-rockers
Mercury Rev, of which the two key members Jonathan Donahue and Grasshopper
also guested on one of his albums.

Last Thursday it was under the banner of Juju, along with his bass/drums engine,
that he played my hometown of Ghent, Belgium (again) as part of European tour.

From the mind-boggling opener In A Ghetto (from the superb 2017 album
Our Mother Was A Plant) we entered the psychedelic world of Valenti with
its trippy jams, transcendent vibes, and tribal grooves.

Juju operates in a hallucinogenic place where you also can listen to old and new psych addicts like Hawkind, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, The Velvet Underground, and The Dandy Warhols and where you can watch kaleidoscopic visuals projected on a wall.
I guess you get the 60s/70s colored picture.

The mean groovy bass/drums machine

Assisted by his mean bass/drums groove machine Valenti cruised through an intoxicating 12-song set without breaks nor brakes and build a wall-of-infectious-tunes sound that feels like taking sonic drugs. After all these years Juju know all the right tricks to get their audience in the right dreamy mood. And they did it again in my Ghent. Another mission accomplished, another great night for my ears.

If you’re not familiar with Valenti‘s work than I strongly
recommend his latest album Flag Of Breeze.

Stream/buy it here.

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JUJU/Gioele Valenti: Facebook – Instagram

Setlist

Photos by Turn Up The Volume