Paris (AFP)
"The two cultures meet, love each other, thank you for being here and thank you for the result": this is how Acid Arab presents to AFP his second album, "Jdid", mesmerizing telescoping of the techno of club and oriental music .
"There is a common trance in Arab music and techno, both brought naturally," says Hervé Carvalho, who together with Guido Minisky forms the original duo, become quintet-lab with Nicolas Borne, Pierrot Casanova and Kenzi Bourras , former keyboard of Rachid Taha.
"Jdid", released on October 18, simply means "new" in Arabic. New album and new guideline. "Before we fantasized the Arabic music, we played it, but it was not in the nails, this time we left the hand to those who really know how to do that, that's what is clearer," illuminates Pierrot Casanova.
The album is full of collaborations and the group is now careful not to offend the sensitivity of some audiences, as at a time when they sampled calls for prayer in techno pieces.
"At the end of an evening, young people who had danced in front of us, came to tell us, calmly, + we should not do that, it's not cool, if my mother hears that ... +. think about it and say to yourself that it's like tagging a church, but we're not there to provocate, we're there for miscegenation, mixing cultures, "explains Guido Minisky.
- "A kind of incantation" -
Acid Arab has built "Jdid" with the dual desire to have a sound "more direct, purified", details Hervé Carvalho, while welcoming guests in his "house".
Each collaboration has its story. Like those of the three Algerian rai singers in the credits, with Kenzi Bourras in the role of facilitator: he went to Setif in the studio with Radia Menel, who poses on "Staifia" ("Daughter of Setif") his voice mode "a little Berber, chaoui ", as he describes it.
"She was easy to convince, she sang what she wanted, already, and we liked it," says Kenzi Bourras. He also wrote the text of "Malek Ya Zahri", sung by Cheikha Hadjla, who lives in Paris and performs in cabarets, for weddings, parties and other evenings. It is a title on "absence, lack, someone who is not there", which can be translated as "My luck is gone," as Guido Minisky and Kenzi Bourras say.
For "Nassibi" ("Destiny"), Amel Wahby, came "a little like a MC in the studio, on a corner of the table, for a kind of incantation," recalls Hervé Carvalho, in "freetsyle "Guido Minisky completes.
- "Everyone is there" -
There is also a handyman-crazy side in Acid Arab. "Electric Yarghol", percussive piece "very club", breath Hervé Carvalho, integrates a double traditional Palestinian oboe.
The piece "Rajel" is also a beautiful assembly. The Tunisian Ammar 808 sent a sound file "and we kept his bass groove, we sampled it, we added everything else, loops and synths, and we sent him back," reveals Pierrot Casanova.
"At first he was quite surprised, he was told + but suddenly, you're embarrassed? + But, no, it really pleased him, it brought him elsewhere. It's the synthesis of this album, everyone we find them there, we bring them elsewhere and they also bring us elsewhere, "he says.
A trip that also participated The Daughters of Illighadad, three Touareg female singers of the Nigerian Sahara. "We organized a concert in Paris, they came, with their guitarist, Ahmoudou Madassane". Result, the title "Soulan" ("Slowly" in a Nigerian dialect) and a "great meeting", rejoices Guido Minisky.
Next date in France to listen to their trance, the Transmusicales in Rennes on December 7th.
© 2019 AFP