I love Agatha -- I happen to be listening to it now. But, really, the whole album is fun. Do you know much about the songs?
― Vornado (Vornado), Monday, 18 December 2006 21:54 (seventeen years ago) link
I am familiar with the two Egyptian songs ("Gana el Hawa," a song originally sing by Abdel Halim Hafez, which is by the same Egyptian composer Jay-Z took that "Big Pimpin'" riff from, and "Ganeli Sheway Sheway," a song from an Oum Kalthoum move from the 40s). I am a lot less familiar with Algerian music than Egyptian music, but I've been picking up bits and pieces about the other songs from reviews and interviews with Rachid Taha. Also, I like Rachid Taha's own couple songs on here.
I have not been a Rachid Taha fan, but I am very impressed with what he, and everyone involved, have done on this. It maintains a lot of the actual flavors of North Africa and Egypt in the timbres and the rhythms. (On the other hand, I keep coming across reviewers who describe the whole thing as rai, which is either partly or entirely wrong. I think the North African styles are chabai or other forerunners of rai.)
If you don't have a legit. copy, the actual CD is worth having for the lyrics.
― arthritic hand golden fist (RSLaRue), Monday, 18 December 2006 23:35 (seventeen years ago) link
― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Monday, 18 December 2006 23:39 (seventeen years ago) link
― arthritic hand golden fist (RSLaRue), Monday, 18 December 2006 23:43 (seventeen years ago) link
― arthritic hand golden fist (RSLaRue), Monday, 18 December 2006 23:53 (seventeen years ago) link
If you can, get the real, French 2-disk version, not the 1-disk abridgement that gets sold here as [i]Khaled Taha Faudel[/i]. That's not bad, but it drops some of the old rai songs, and it doesn't have enough Faudel on it (his voice is amazing).
But I also agree that [i]Diwan 2[/i] is definitely worth a purchase. It is really well-recorded -- great textures, great instrumentation (although not especially rai instrumentation -- no accordion), great feel. Taha's last record was very rock and very explicitly political. This one is much lighter, and more subtle -- a long celebration of hybrid francarabe culture, which presents embracing your confusion and syncretism as an implied alternative to Islamism and Salafist rigor.
In the pop rai vein, I liked Cheb Mami's [i]Delalli[/i] and any of the recent Khaled records.
― Vornado (Vornado), Tuesday, 19 December 2006 14:59 (seventeen years ago) link
― tiit (t**t), Tuesday, 19 December 2006 16:01 (seventeen years ago) link
If you like Taha in general, I can't imagine your not liking this. It's very much of a piece with his work, though it has a radically different emphasis than Tekitoi? or any of the last few records.
― Vornado (Vornado), Tuesday, 19 December 2006 20:18 (seventeen years ago) link
― tiit (t**t), Tuesday, 19 December 2006 21:11 (seventeen years ago) link