French singer/songwriter Frédéric Lo is highly regarded for his behind-the-scenes work with a wide variety of artists as a composer, arranger, and producer. He was largely unknown outside of France until his 2022 collaborative album with ex-Libertines frontman Peter Doherty, The Fantasy Life of Poetry and Crime.

Born Frédéric Bonnet on August 23, 1964 in Rodez, north-east of Toulouse, Lo was already in his thirties when he first appeared on the French pop scene with his 1997 album La Marne Bleue ("The Blue Marne") and its follow-up, 2000's Les Anges de Verre ("The Glass Angels"). An Anglophile with a love of Oscar Wilde and the Smiths, Lo has been compared to Stephen Street. His solo work, melancholic and erudite, carries Anglophone influences of new wave and indie pop.

But it was as a composer, arranger, and producer for other artists that he really made his mark, working over the next two decades with a wide range of names including Marc Lavoine, Stephan Eicher, Alex Beaupain, Maxime le Forestier, and Florent Pagny. Perhaps his biggest success was ex-Taxi Girl singer Daniel Darc's 2004 comeback album Crèvecœur ("Heartbreak"), which he produced and for which he composed all the music. Critically acclaimed, it sold 60,000 copies and won "Revelatory Album of the Year" at that year's prestigious Victoires de la Musique awards. Lo also collaborated with two artists perhaps better known to Anglophone audiences -- Scala Kolacny Brothers and Fink.

After almost 20 years of working behind the scenes, Lo released his third solo album, Hallelujah, in 2019. It was while working on a tribute album for his friend Daniel Darc, who had died in 2013, that Lo thought of Doherty, whose solo album he had enjoyed. He asked Doherty to record a version of Darc's "Inutile et Hors d'Usage" ("Useless and Used Up"), for which he, Lo, had written the music. Doherty enjoyed working with Lo so much that he asked to continue their collaboration after the tribute sessions were over. The pair got together in the studio and had soon written an entire album of polished, classicist indie pop. The Fantasy Life of Poetry and Crime was released on Doherty's own Strap Originals label in 2022. ~ John D. Buchanan, Rovi