Raït here, raït now, we are sipping on some mint tea and rejoicing in the wavy, lo-fi, synth-tastic tape sounds of iconic Algerian singer Cheb Hasni. Born Hasni Chakroun in 1968, he is widely considered one of the greatest vocalists of the raï genre, although his burgeoning career was brought to a sudden end at the age of 26, when he was tragically murdered outside his parents' home in Oran.

Hasni's career was nonetheless prolific: After releasing his first [...]

One man's trash is another man's treasure. As cliché as that may sound, there's no denying that it's a pretty good fit for Tel Aviv-Yafo-based artist Eyal el Wahab's DIY approach to making music, as impressively brought to fruition on his recently released second album on Glitterbeat Records. El Khat is the name of his stimulating retro-futurist project, named after the plant-based drug commonly chewed in North East Africa and the Arabian Penisula.

After being [...]

This aggression will not stand! It has been one day and a month sind Putin launched the unlawful and utterly senseless Russian attack on Ukraine. Yet despite Ukraine's valiant resistance, the war machine keeps churning. In all its wanton horror, however, war can also have a unifying effect and forge new alliances amidst its inherent drive to total destruction. Subsequently, a wave of disbelief and solidarity has swept across many parts of this world to reveal [...]

Judging a record by its cover is not always the worst thing. Neither is taking a closer look at it and trying to immerse yourself into the assumed conceptual environment of what you are about to listen to. Naturally, we approached this album with a certain bias. Having previously reviewed and raved about Anadol's 2019-released album "Uzun Havalar", we couldn't wait to see, what she had intricately pieced together this time around. 

The album cover is a [...]

Cohesion is commonly defined as the act or fact of sticking together tightly forming a whole and it is a word that comes to mind, when listening to the brand-new album by Berlin-based multi-cultural afro-soul outfit Jembaa Groove. Founded by German bassist, composer and producer Yannick Nolting alongside Ghanaian singer, songwriter and percussionist Eric Owusu at the tail end of 2020, the project eventually evolved into a versatile seven-piece bridging [...]

Breathe in, breathe out, as the waves ebb and flow and our minds travel. It's stories like these that purvey deeper meaning in artistic production and resonate with us, both spiritually and sonically. Brighton's Hive Mind Records has released a truly divine new record, featuring a stirring collaboration between young Bengali migrant Mohammed After Hussain and Italian electronic artist Andrea Rusconi, aka PAQ. "Matir Gaan: Songs from the Earth" sees the two [...]

It's been a long, long time and a lot has happened in the world since London-based Sudanese collective The Scorpios released their critically acclaimed debut album on Afro7. Five years is it? Luckily for us, we first heard of the band via Astrid Engberg's Palmspree Mix and thus had a somewhat shorter wait.

"Let's Go" is the title of album number two by The Scorpios and it does not disappoint. Having added Japanese keyboard legend Izumi Kobayashi to the already [...]

"Life is a Heavy Burden" is the title of the latest release on Strut Records, as the always stellar London-based imprint launches its new United Sounds of Asia series, a "project celebrating musical routes, journeys and histories across Asia [that is] helmed by the Paradise Bangkok founders Maft Sai (Zudrangma Records) and Chris Menist (Awkward Corners)." This is a special one, seeing as it is "the first compilation of legendary Afghan Ghazal singer Dr. [...]

Eleven minutes and twenty-five seconds of pure samba jazz spirit led by Brazilian icon Joyce Moreno, aka Joyce, or, as Antônio Carlos Jobim put it, "one of the greatest singers ever." With Record Store Day 2022 ahead, Far Out Recordings have just unveiled one of the finds of the year and although we no longer support the event itself and what in our eyes has become a sort of major label slugfest, this forthcoming release to us represents, what collecting and [...]

Flashback to 2020, when Bologna-based three-piece Oké, alias veteran producer Andrea "Katzuma" Visani, William Simone (percussion, FX) and Andrea Calì (keys), released their lush 18-track double album "Deserto" on Original Cultures, blending influences from library music and cosmic jazz with afrohouse rhythms and outernational hues. Despite never getting around to actually reviewing the album, "Oasi (Deserto Remixed)" now presents us with a second chance. [...]

December 1987 marked the First Intifada, a series of Palestinian protests and violent riots against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. A week into the popular uprising, Riad Awwad, "an electrical engineer specialising in musical equipment," got together with his sisters Hanan, Alia and Nariman and began recording an album in their living room "on equipment he had made himself." 

Fast forward some 34 years to Jenin, a Palestinian city in the West [...]

Master percussionist and composer Imed Alibi is a household name in Tunisian music, who began his career at an early age, playing alongside several popular and classical North African/Middle Eastern orchestras, and has since collaborated with renowned artists the likes of Rachid Taha, Natasha Atlas, Emel Mathlouthi and more. After relocating to Montpellier, France, in the early 2000s, he joined French 'rock 'n' raï' group Les Boukakes, released his first solo [...]