Los Desterrados

'But my personal favourite is Los Desterrados strutting Flamenco-ish take on Elvis Costello’s “(yo no quero ir a) Chelsea”. This is partly because it dispenses completely with the song’s core riff yet still remains wholly faithful to the original. And partly because it’s such a pleasure to hear a good female vocalist put a sensual new spin on Costello’s spiky lyrics.' - theartsdesk.com

Los Desterrados: Por ke yoras, blanka ninya?
I met Ariane Todes, who edits The Strad magazine, at a party and discovered that she plays the violin in this group, Los Desterrados. They play what they describe as Sephardic flamenco and it sounded so extraordinary that I rushed off and bought their latest CD. This song, which translates as ‘Why do you weep, fair maiden’, is intensely melancholy and the woman’s voice sounds as if it carries the weight of the world. It’s wonderful. - Sinfini Music

The Ladino language and culture of the Mediterranean Jews survived the 1492 expulsion from Spain and Hitler’s Holocaust to enjoy a minor contemporary revival in a narrow niche between classical and world music. Los Desterrados, led on violin and mandolin by the editor of the impeccably classical Strad magazine, Ariane Todes, is cheerfully eclectic and eco-tourist. Instead of the usual drone of Sarajevo lullabies, they play Tunisian devotions, Greek love songs and a Bulgarian ditty about a frog who fries chips. Never a dull moment, and done with infectious enthusiasm.
Norman Lebrecht - Evening Standard, Norman Lebrecht

...It was a good night, too, for the openers, Los Desterrados, a six-piece with five singers who played oud, fiddle, guitar and hand drums. Their sturdy songs come from the Sephardi Jews, expelled from Spain in the 15th century and dispersed across the Mediterranean. A man behind me confided to his female companion that they are "a great Spanish band". In fact they are from north London... - The Guardian, Robin Denselow

...It was a good night, too, for the openers, Los Desterrados, a six-piece with five singers who played oud, fiddle, guitar and hand drums. Their sturdy songs come from the Sephardi Jews, expelled from Spain in the 15th century and dispersed across the Mediterranean. A man behind me confided to his female companion that they are "a great Spanish band". In fact they are from north London... - The Guardian, Robin Denselow

...Earlier there were discoveries from every global corner, as wind swirled black clouds away, to leave this Wiltshire field baking in unexpected sun. The feeling this may be a lucky festival isn't hurt by the first sound I hear: Los Desterrados, Judeo-Spanish music from north London, in the almost lost language of Ladino. It could be Yiddish the way it's sung, and as violins and Spanish guitars intertwine, it's hard to know where or when you are...

- The Independent, 25 July 2009

...Earlier there were discoveries from every global corner, as wind swirled black clouds away, to leave this Wiltshire field baking in unexpected sun. The feeling this may be a lucky festival isn't hurt by the first sound I hear: Los Desterrados, Judeo-Spanish music from north London, in the almost lost language of Ladino. It could be Yiddish the way it's sung, and as violins and Spanish guitars intertwine, it's hard to know where or when you are...

- The Independent, 25 July 2009

LOS DESTERRADOS
Miradores Crusoe Records CRU002CD
This north-west London Ladino group have previously struck me as entertaining but lightweight home-grown exponents of the Sephardic Jewish tradition. Very good live, but easily blown out of the water by the sheer emotional depth and vocal firepower of Yasmin Levy (who mines a similar "Ladino meets flamenco" seam). To some degree this is still true, but this new recording is Los Des' most accomplished and confident to date and, where these nice Jewish boys and girls sounded a little bit too polite for their own good on their previous album, here they let rip with an appealing playfulness and some imaginative arrangements.
The opening Mi Suegra La Negra is a case in point, a song from Bulgaria about the evils of mothers-in-law, performed in a 'lift yer skirts up and dance' flamenco style (one for fans of both Les Dawson and The Gypsy Kings then); the haunting Por La Puerta Yo Pasi finds percussionist Mark Greenfield singing in Ladino and Turkish, while Asi Dize La Nuestra Novia is a wedding song given a North African flavour and featuring the group's main vocalist Hayley Blitz at her most impassioned. If you've never been to one of their gigs, this gives you a very good idea of what you're missing.
www.losdesterrados.com, distributed by Proper: www.properdistribution.com
Jamie Renton
- fRoots Jan/Feb 2009 nos. 307/8

LOS DESTERRADOS
Miradores Crusoe Records CRU002CD
This north-west London Ladino group have previously struck me as entertaining but lightweight home-grown exponents of the Sephardic Jewish tradition. Very good live, but easily blown out of the water by the sheer emotional depth and vocal firepower of Yasmin Levy (who mines a similar "Ladino meets flamenco" seam). To some degree this is still true, but this new recording is Los Des' most accomplished and confident to date and, where these nice Jewish boys and girls sounded a little bit too polite for their own good on their previous album, here they let rip with an appealing playfulness and some imaginative arrangements.
The opening Mi Suegra La Negra is a case in point, a song from Bulgaria about the evils of mothers-in-law, performed in a 'lift yer skirts up and dance' flamenco style (one for fans of both Les Dawson and The Gypsy Kings then); the haunting Por La Puerta Yo Pasi finds percussionist Mark Greenfield singing in Ladino and Turkish, while Asi Dize La Nuestra Novia is a wedding song given a North African flavour and featuring the group's main vocalist Hayley Blitz at her most impassioned. If you've never been to one of their gigs, this gives you a very good idea of what you're missing.
www.losdesterrados.com, distributed by Proper: www.properdistribution.com
Jamie Renton
- fRoots Jan/Feb 2009 nos. 307/8

Travel the Mediterranean with ‘Miradores’ from Los Desterrados, their second on the independent Crusoe label. With tighter percussion, more rounded singing, greater interplay between the strings of the guitar, oud, violin and electric bass, plus autograph beckoning studio portraits in the glossy sleeve notes, the album stands out as an altogether confident offering, building on their 2001 debut, ‘Tu’. It has also landed the band a nomination in the Songlines Music awards 2009.

Their confident sound, could be attributed in part to the sound engineering of Simon Edwards. However, one mustn't ignore the ground covered by the London based band during the last nine years of hard work and countless live performances.




Miradores continues their exploration and passion for the songbook of the Sephardic Jews. Los Desterrados ( The Exiles) draw on the musical legacy of the Sephardic diaspora after their expulsion from King Ferdinand’s Spain in 1462. Mapping the journey of the Sephardic Diaspora we are taken on a journey around the Mediterranean, south across North Africa and east through Greece, The Balkans and finally into Turkey.

Highlights of the album include, “Kokhav tzedek” ( Star of Righteousness ), a rousing percussive number with plenty of opportunities to join in with handclaps and yodels as Daniel Jonas sings a Moroccan song in praise of the prophet Abraham, accompanied by flute, darbuka in a call and response style in which the rest of the band form the chorus.

“Por La Tu Puerta Yo Pasi” ( I passed by your door ) sung in Ladino and Turkish with beautiful poise, emotion and timing by Mark Greenfield. As he tells us that he would rather be buried than rejected by his love, his vocals interweave with a sympathetic violin and guitar. Mirroring the sentiments of a lovelorn young man, the song breaks into flamenco phrases to emphasise his frustration while the violin relays his mental turmoil.

“Por Ke Yoras, Blanka Ninya ?” (Why do you weep fair maiden?) Hayley Blitz at her finest, hitting the highs and the lows with gentle melancholy. A stripped down song, with a perfectly sympathetic guitar accompaniment from Daniel Jonas who again, makes use of flamenco phrasing and perfect timing to underpin the emotional stresses of being left, a young widow with tiny children to feed.

Miradores is a celebration of love and life in all its facets, sometimes, joyful, sometimes contemplative and mournful. Youthful desires, suffocating mother in laws, unrequited love, seductive flirtations, war and abandonment are the common themes. There’s also space for a fun nonsense song from Bulgaria in which a frog fries chips and camels make filo pastry. Secular folk songs sit alongside religious praise songs. Each with an individual interpretation offered by Los Desterrados, who demonstrate that whilst much has happened in the world during the last 500 years, the themes in the songs are as relevant today as they ever were.
Jill Turner


- World Music Central

Travel the Mediterranean with ‘Miradores’ from Los Desterrados, their second on the independent Crusoe label. With tighter percussion, more rounded singing, greater interplay between the strings of the guitar, oud, violin and electric bass, plus autograph beckoning studio portraits in the glossy sleeve notes, the album stands out as an altogether confident offering, building on their 2001 debut, ‘Tu’. It has also landed the band a nomination in the Songlines Music awards 2009.

Their confident sound, could be attributed in part to the sound engineering of Simon Edwards. However, one mustn't ignore the ground covered by the London based band during the last nine years of hard work and countless live performances.




Miradores continues their exploration and passion for the songbook of the Sephardic Jews. Los Desterrados ( The Exiles) draw on the musical legacy of the Sephardic diaspora after their expulsion from King Ferdinand’s Spain in 1462. Mapping the journey of the Sephardic Diaspora we are taken on a journey around the Mediterranean, south across North Africa and east through Greece, The Balkans and finally into Turkey.

Highlights of the album include, “Kokhav tzedek” ( Star of Righteousness ), a rousing percussive number with plenty of opportunities to join in with handclaps and yodels as Daniel Jonas sings a Moroccan song in praise of the prophet Abraham, accompanied by flute, darbuka in a call and response style in which the rest of the band form the chorus.

“Por La Tu Puerta Yo Pasi” ( I passed by your door ) sung in Ladino and Turkish with beautiful poise, emotion and timing by Mark Greenfield. As he tells us that he would rather be buried than rejected by his love, his vocals interweave with a sympathetic violin and guitar. Mirroring the sentiments of a lovelorn young man, the song breaks into flamenco phrases to emphasise his frustration while the violin relays his mental turmoil.

“Por Ke Yoras, Blanka Ninya ?” (Why do you weep fair maiden?) Hayley Blitz at her finest, hitting the highs and the lows with gentle melancholy. A stripped down song, with a perfectly sympathetic guitar accompaniment from Daniel Jonas who again, makes use of flamenco phrasing and perfect timing to underpin the emotional stresses of being left, a young widow with tiny children to feed.

Miradores is a celebration of love and life in all its facets, sometimes, joyful, sometimes contemplative and mournful. Youthful desires, suffocating mother in laws, unrequited love, seductive flirtations, war and abandonment are the common themes. There’s also space for a fun nonsense song from Bulgaria in which a frog fries chips and camels make filo pastry. Secular folk songs sit alongside religious praise songs. Each with an individual interpretation offered by Los Desterrados, who demonstrate that whilst much has happened in the world during the last 500 years, the themes in the songs are as relevant today as they ever were.
Jill Turner


- World Music Central

We think of exiles as hungry-eyed
new arrivals, wandering a
strange land with bittersweet
memories of the country they
left behind. But what happens next? What
happens in the future, when the greatgrandchildren
of those original exiles
achieve some assimilation and start to
wonder about their roots? The six
members of London-based Los
Desterrados (The Exiles) come from a
variety of Jewish backgrounds, from the
deeply religious to the purely secular, but
all are descended from exiles of one kind
or another. What’s more, they’ve chosen to
express their Jewishness by exploring the
music of the Sephardim, the Jews exiled
from Spain in the 15th century, who
spread out across the Middle East and the
Med, drawing on and contributing to the
local cultures as they went.
If the thought of a group of North
London suburbanites delving into such
arcane musical terrain sounds fake or selfconscious
or just plain stuffy, then you
clearly haven’t witnessed the joyous celebration
of musical openness and spontaneity
that is Los Des live. The group’s
recorded output has been more hit and
miss, but their recently released third
album Miradores (Crusoe), is the one that
comes closest to capturing the brio and
versatility of those live shows.
“One of the things that we’re very
keen on is the idea of music as something
that brings people together,” explains
Daniel Jonas, guitarist, oud player and
founder, when I meet with him and lead
singer Hayley Blitz, in Daniel’s north-west
London home. “Judaism has always been a
bit of a melting pot and no more so than
in the Sephardic community. So, the insistence
that authenticity is about whether
you’re pronouncing something exactly the
way that it was pronounced in a particular
set of streets in Salonika in 1917, is a little
bit sterile. Fine if you’re running a museum,
but we’re not, we’re entertainers and
our audience isn’t there to be lectured.
They might learn something, but they’re
there to enjoy!” This is not revival music,
as Sephardic culture is alive and well in
Morocco, Algeria, Greece, Turkey, Bosnia-
Herzegovina and even London! Daniel is a
practising part of that small but active
community, “We’ve moved away from the
assimilationism that characterised the
post-war years,” says Daniel of the UK
Sephardim, “back to more confidence in
who we are and where we’re from.”
For Daniel, forming the group was
about finding a way of doing Jewish music
that escaped Fiddler On The Roof clichés.
He discovered Ladino (i.e. Sephardic) music
via flamenco and started to put together a
group of musicians who he felt had the
chops and the interest to develop his idea:
there was his old friend Hayley whose musical
roots are in English folk; bass player
Jean-Marc Barsam came from a jazz background;
percussionist Mark Greenfield was
added and the group made their live debut
nine years ago. Subsequently, flautist/ guitarist
Andrew Salida and violinist Ariane
Todes have rounded out the Desterrados
sound and the band have been performing
with this line-up since 2002, but everyone
has retained their full-time day jobs,
enabling them to pick and choose only the
things they really want to do as a group.
The Los Des repertoire features both
religious and secular music, from all corners
of the Sephardic world. “We talk to
people, hear songs that others have done
and there’s a vast amount out there on the
internet,” explains Daniel. “There’s also a
vast amount of field recordings of old
ladies singing into tape recorders. That’s
our seed bed. We’ll take a song where the
vocal line or the lyrical hook appeals to us
and build it up into a full arrangement.”
“That’s done very collaboratively,”
chips in Hayley. “We’ll sit down and learn
the vocal line, everybody sings it and from
there everyone works on their own parts.”
Whilst they’re well known around the
London world music community, working
with musicians and dancers from a range
of cultures (gnawa, bellydance, flamenco),
Los Des also perform within their own
community. “We get people coming up to
us with tears in their eyes after our gigs,”
Hayley explains, “thanking us for playing a
particular song that they remember their
grandmother singing to them.”
Miradores showcases the full
range of the Los Des sound,
flamenco footstompers, lyrical
Turkish tunes and percussive
North African flavours. Producer Simon
Edwards (who’s previously worked with
Billy Bragg and the late Kirsty MacColl),
was keen to capture the band’s live
energy. “He very much felt that there are
a lot of world music albums out there that
are too clean, too produced,” Hayley
recalls, “and that was something that had
been said about our previous album. He
had some great ideas about how to get
that sound that we needed.”
What you can’t fully appreciate on a
recording is the warmth and interaction
that’s central to the appeal of a Los Des
live show. “I think the one song wh - FRoots

Los Desterrados - Miradores


Los Desterrados are to be found where Sephardic music meets its flamenco and balkan neighbours and that's a vibrant, spicy place to be as they mature their contemporary rendering of a traditional repertoire for their third album.

The group has recently appeared in an American documentary alongside such literary luminaries as Isabel Allende and Doris Lessing, and even those of us who have no understanding of Ladino (the previously near-defunct language of the Sephardic Jews that has been famously revitalised by Yasmin Levy), these sensitively arranged songs - covering such timeless themes as war, love, family and evil mothers-in-law - have a musical lyricism that connects as well as any first-language narrative.

Acoustic guitar, violin, percussion and the striking, soulful timbre of main lead vocalist Hayley Blitz weave a sumptuous, multi-textured sound (sometimes smooth and reflective, sometimes briskly ear-catching) that carries hints of a Jewish Ojos de Brujo, the flightier end of klezmer music, hints of jazz and a rich, percussive Middle Eastern stew of call and response and plaintive intonation.

With help from the impassioned cry of extra vocalists Daniel Jonas, Mark Greenfield and Andrew Salilda and timely interjections from mandolins, ouds and flute to give a distinct eastern Mediterranean tinge to proceedings, Miradores is a rich and heady brew.

—Con Murphy
Sunday 9 November 2008 - Fly Global Music Culture

We think of exiles as hungry-eyed
new arrivals, wandering a
strange land with bittersweet
memories of the country they
left behind. But what happens next? What
happens in the future, when the greatgrandchildren
of those original exiles
achieve some assimilation and start to
wonder about their roots? The six
members of London-based Los
Desterrados (The Exiles) come from a
variety of Jewish backgrounds, from the
deeply religious to the purely secular, but
all are descended from exiles of one kind
or another. What’s more, they’ve chosen to
express their Jewishness by exploring the
music of the Sephardim, the Jews exiled
from Spain in the 15th century, who
spread out across the Middle East and the
Med, drawing on and contributing to the
local cultures as they went.
If the thought of a group of North
London suburbanites delving into such
arcane musical terrain sounds fake or selfconscious
or just plain stuffy, then you
clearly haven’t witnessed the joyous celebration
of musical openness and spontaneity
that is Los Des live. The group’s
recorded output has been more hit and
miss, but their recently released third
album Miradores (Crusoe), is the one that
comes closest to capturing the brio and
versatility of those live shows.
“One of the things that we’re very
keen on is the idea of music as something
that brings people together,” explains
Daniel Jonas, guitarist, oud player and
founder, when I meet with him and lead
singer Hayley Blitz, in Daniel’s north-west
London home. “Judaism has always been a
bit of a melting pot and no more so than
in the Sephardic community. So, the insistence
that authenticity is about whether
you’re pronouncing something exactly the
way that it was pronounced in a particular
set of streets in Salonika in 1917, is a little
bit sterile. Fine if you’re running a museum,
but we’re not, we’re entertainers and
our audience isn’t there to be lectured.
They might learn something, but they’re
there to enjoy!” This is not revival music,
as Sephardic culture is alive and well in
Morocco, Algeria, Greece, Turkey, Bosnia-
Herzegovina and even London! Daniel is a
practising part of that small but active
community, “We’ve moved away from the
assimilationism that characterised the
post-war years,” says Daniel of the UK
Sephardim, “back to more confidence in
who we are and where we’re from.”
For Daniel, forming the group was
about finding a way of doing Jewish music
that escaped Fiddler On The Roof clichés.
He discovered Ladino (i.e. Sephardic) music
via flamenco and started to put together a
group of musicians who he felt had the
chops and the interest to develop his idea:
there was his old friend Hayley whose musical
roots are in English folk; bass player
Jean-Marc Barsam came from a jazz background;
percussionist Mark Greenfield was
added and the group made their live debut
nine years ago. Subsequently, flautist/ guitarist
Andrew Salida and violinist Ariane
Todes have rounded out the Desterrados
sound and the band have been performing
with this line-up since 2002, but everyone
has retained their full-time day jobs,
enabling them to pick and choose only the
things they really want to do as a group.
The Los Des repertoire features both
religious and secular music, from all corners
of the Sephardic world. “We talk to
people, hear songs that others have done
and there’s a vast amount out there on the
internet,” explains Daniel. “There’s also a
vast amount of field recordings of old
ladies singing into tape recorders. That’s
our seed bed. We’ll take a song where the
vocal line or the lyrical hook appeals to us
and build it up into a full arrangement.”
“That’s done very collaboratively,”
chips in Hayley. “We’ll sit down and learn
the vocal line, everybody sings it and from
there everyone works on their own parts.”
Whilst they’re well known around the
London world music community, working
with musicians and dancers from a range
of cultures (gnawa, bellydance, flamenco),
Los Des also perform within their own
community. “We get people coming up to
us with tears in their eyes after our gigs,”
Hayley explains, “thanking us for playing a
particular song that they remember their
grandmother singing to them.”
Miradores showcases the full
range of the Los Des sound,
flamenco footstompers, lyrical
Turkish tunes and percussive
North African flavours. Producer Simon
Edwards (who’s previously worked with
Billy Bragg and the late Kirsty MacColl),
was keen to capture the band’s live
energy. “He very much felt that there are
a lot of world music albums out there that
are too clean, too produced,” Hayley
recalls, “and that was something that had
been said about our previous album. He
had some great ideas about how to get
that sound that we needed.”
What you can’t fully appreciate on a
recording is the warmth and interaction
that’s central to the appeal of a Los Des
live show. “I think the one song wh - FRoots