Trois

Description

Acid Arab is finally releasing its third album: (Trois). The Franco-Algerian collective delivers ten bangers, composite gems enriched by many varieties of the Arabic language. Wael Alkak, Cem Yildiz, Ghizlane Melih, Khnafer Lazhar, Sofiane Saïdi, Fella Soltana, Cheb Halim and Rachid Taha are the eight singers who joined Acid Arab to create this embodied and cerebral album. Algerian gasba, Anatolian trance, synthetic dabkeh or bionic raï. After a decade spent traveling around the world, the collective has mastered its cards and plays with musical territories: "We are aware of having developed a compositional principle, but we are careful not to repeat a certain formula on every album," explains the group. "It is the working relationship with the artists that pushes us to take the concept even further." "Trois" opens with Leila, a track sung by Sofiane Saidi, author and performer of an instinctive raï, dedicated to celebration and ecstasy. "Sofiane has been with us since our first release; he performed La Hafla on Musique de France." The album continues with Done Done, performed by Cem Yildiz, a champion of electronic hybridization in Turkey. "A major guest. We love the deep aspect brought by his very psychy style." This multi-instrumentalist revisits a Turkish elevation ceremony, which he also happens to bear the name of (pronounced "djem"), a mystical religious ritual. He too has been collaborating with Acid Arab since their first album (the track Stil). Trance makes its way onto the dancefloor with Ya Mahla, marking a reunion between Acid Arab and Syrian post-chaabi dabkeh artist Wael Alkak. He had been considered in 2014 to become the group’s keyboardist. "Reuniting with Wael on a shared track, a decade after our meeting, felt like an obvious choice. Ya Mahla carries that anthem-like side, with its committed lyrics: How beautiful the word Freedom / I salute the Arab peoples / How beautiful the word Freedom / I salute the Arab revolutionaries [...] Allah, Allah the greatest / protect the families of the revolutionaries…" A powerful message, delivered with a hypnotic keyboard lead over a linear production, in the spirit of the rhythmic work of a Superpitcher or a Rebolledo. Cheb Halim is the fourth guest on this new album. A raï singer, Halim also embodies "aroubi," a musical genre deeply rooted in Algerian rural life. The duo reaches a balanced agreement, creating a shared musical space of expression without either side being forced to make concessions. A dynamic that is also fully expressed on the tracks Habaytak, with the voice of Moroccan diva Ghizlane Melih, or on Gouloulou, alongside the illustrious Fella Soltana, formerly known as Fella Ababsa, a 90s raï star in Algeria, who stopped her career in 2018. On Acid Chawi, in collaboration with Algerian singer Khnafer Lazhar and a gasba player from Constantine, Acid Arab affirms its taste for raw aesthetics: "We are very attached to the traditional sounds of the gasba." With its acid house production coupled with the fierce energy of the ensemble led by Khnafer, Acid Chawi is literally the most Acid Arab track on the tracklist of "Trois". The record continues with other reunions, this time virtual: "We used to spend time with Rachid Taha during the last years of his life (he died on September 12, 2018). After a feast in Belleville, we went to GilbR from the Versatile label. That night, Rachid improvised naturally, over a Detroit track, and we recorded him on a smartphone." A nocturnal sermon which, six years later, finds its place on Rachid Trip, a tense technoid production to perfection. On the track Emo, it is Kenzi Bourras (the group’s keyboardist) who takes the mic, over a dark and cerebral production largely influenced by the Detroit nebula of Dopplereffekt. He was already providing vocals during Rachid Taha’s concerts, when the latter would make room for him on the traditional standard Abdel Kader. On Emo, Kenzi’s ultra-processed, robotized voice flirts with the unknown. Acid Arab’s third album closes with Sayarat 303 Part 2, a long instrumental technoid build-up that thus provides a conclusion to Sayarat 303, a track released on Musique de France. Born from the meeting between Pierre-Yves Casanova, Nicolas Borne, Hervé Carvalho, Guido Minisky and Kenzi Bourras, Acid Arab has released two widely celebrated albums (Musique de France in 2016 and Jdid in 2019), created a series of compilations, a label, imagined "drawn concerts" with Lebanese illustrator Raphaëlle Macaron and performed many turbulent dates around the world. Today, the group presents "Trois" (three, in Arabic) and begins a world tour that will allow audiences to discover these new tracks in their live version.