DJAZIRAT EL MAGHREB EP by ACID ARAB

This september, Acid Arab celebrate their third birthday and the release of a first EP on Versatile.From Acid Arab, you knew the ‘Collections’ series: three EPs and one album, featuring a lot of guests (Omar Souleyman vs Crackboy, I:Cube, Legowelt, Pilooski,Gilb-R). It took the band that long to finally release a whole record of their songs. It’s called ‘Djazirat El Maghreb’ and it’s a tribute to North Africa and its three countries, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. First track is called ‘Mogador’, the old name for famous port city Essaouira in Morocco. A 6/8 rhythm, increased with traditional krakebs percussions, leads the dancers to a trance, while the trance of electronics grows imperceptibly bigger and bigger. On b-side, track one is called ‘Hafla"’, which means ‘party’ in arabic. It features an old algerian rhythm called Alaoui, used in dance parties but as well in Chaabi music. It also features Acid Arab keyboard player Kenzi Bourras on fire on a couple of solos. ‘Amal’ is an homage to tunisian percussions and traditional mezwed, a word that designs an arabic pipe but also a style of music that you can hear all over the country. For this song the iranian musician Saeid Shanbehzadeh offered great notes of neyanbān, which is another version of the bagpipe. All songs have been recorded in Shelter Studio, Paris, by Acid Arab (Nicolas Borne, Pierrot Casanova, Hervé Carvalho & Guido Minisky) and their guests.