Ouechesma

Description

Chaoui is a genre of Berber music from the Aures region of Algeria. It is a mix of Saharan and Atlas Mountain music, characterized by dance rhythms, and is part of the living oral tradition of the Aures region. The first recordings on magnetic tape date back to the 1930s. Over the years, Chaoui has given rise to different sub-genres. The genre was popularized in the 1930s and 1940s and continued to generate strong enthusiasm throughout the country, and more particularly in the Aures region in the 2000s. In its most frequent instrumental configuration, a Chaoui music group includes a zurna, a gasba flute, a bendir and one or more singers. Hocine Chaoui is one of the most famous and respected musicians and poets of the genre. Hocine modernized his sound with drum machines, incorporating intense, modern production techniques with phased gesba flute, reverberated vocals, bringing the genre to its logical new phase. This LP is a reissue of one of the most requested tapes of the genre, originally released by Oriental Music Production, a cassette label dedicated to the best regional releases during the golden age of Algerian rai and local music cassettes of the 80s and 90s. These recordings have never been released on cassette and are now highly prized in the collectors' market.