Rachid Taha Diwan CD

The sophomore release from Algerian singer Rachid Taha. This is a stunning album, as he moves through straightforward rai to blues, rock, and the full spectrum of worldbeat. The album starts out with a song about exile from home, followed by a musical history of rai, covering all of the basic steps in the development of Taha's chosen base-style. An Egyptian film song from the great Farid El Atrache continues the barrage of bouncing Middle Eastern and North African sounds. A more modern version of the ay-ay genre ensues, with fuzzed guitars looped throughout. Some urban Algerian blues and a bit of chaabi follow, on the topics of love and love lost. The album finishes with a stretch of slightly more serious songs, with a number based on the Algerian war for independence and the torture endured by its prisoners, a political song from a Moroccan group, a basic rai number in French pidgin, and a song from the frustrated youth of Algeria. This is something of a North African tour-de-force, as Taha moves from one style to another, always partially based in the rai tradition, but always expanding to other styles in the process. The songs can be backed by a simple flute, or by a group of rock guitars. Either way, the works are held together by the overriding compositions that Taha is dealing from. It's a great album for those that are already knowledgeable in rai for its new directions, and a nice album for newcomers as it displays the full breadth in a single disc. ~ Adam Greenberg

The 1998 sophomore release from the Algerian singing superstar who shifts effortlessly between Rai, Blues, Rock, Dance and other worldly styles of music. This was a groundbreaking album that helped set the stage for others to break through and be recognized with the emergence of Rai based music in the late 1990's. Taha showed the way to incorporate Western influences to appeal to a wider audience.

Engineers: Pete Hoffmann, Dave Pemberton, Steve Hillage.

Personnel: Amina Alaoui (vocals); Steve Hillage (guitar, programming); Nabil Khalidi (banjo, oud, percussion, background vocals); Geoffrey Richardson, Bob Loveday (strings); Aziz Ben Salam (flute).

Audio Mixers: Dave Pemberton; Pete Hofmann; Steve Hillage.

Recording information: Rollover, Milo; Strongroom Studios, London, England.Dirty Linen (6-7/99, pp.69-70) - "...DIWAN is one of those rare pop albums that both epitomize and transcend the genre, and it grooves incessantly..."