Buy anything from the World Music store and you can get the official CD from the Songlines Music Awards 2013 for just £1.99. Offer ends at 23:59 on Sunday, June 30. Learn more.
Buy anything from the World Music store and you can get the official CD from the Songlines Music Awards 2013 for just £1.99. Offer ends at 23:59 on Sunday, June 30. Learn more. |
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Track Listings
| Disc: 1 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Ya Rayah | |||
| 2. Rock El Casbah | |||
| 3. Nokta | |||
| 4. Voila Voila | |||
| 5. Habina | |||
| 6. Kelma | |||
| 7. Bent Sahra | |||
| 8. Douce France | |||
| 9. Indie | |||
| 10. Jungle Fiction | |||
See all 15 tracks on this disc
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| Disc: 2 | |||
| 1. Rachid Taha returns to Algeria. | |||
Product Description
Review
It's almost a quarter of a century since Rachid Taha made his debut as leader of Carte de Sejour. That group melded Rock with Rai and though none of its music is included on this Best Of, those threads are sewn throughout its fifteen songs. Born in Algeria, Taha left at a young age with his family during the War of Independence that eventually saw France relinquish its colonial claim to the country.
With a background as an Algerian in France, the singer has explored the experience of exile in many songs. Some of the titles in this collection clearly underline this, even before the brief notes appended to the songs in the booklet drive the point home. Take for example ''Barra Barra (Outside)'', ''Menfi (The Exile)'' and ''Douce France (Sweet France)''. Surely that last one is dripping with irony? So it turns out: a cover of a patriotic song by Charles Trenet, Rachid Taha renders it with a brilliant snarl that reportedly caused uproar in France at the time of its release.
And the music itself? I referred to the melding of Rock and Rai, but Taha's sound is much more varied than that. A wide variety of other influences is evident: ''Jungle Fiction'' doesn't betray its name, successfully marrying breakbeats to Rai'n'Roll, Kelma's horn section sounds like it wandered in from a mariachi band, and ''Bent Sahra (The Girl of the Sahara)'' could be authentic nomad fare, sand-blasted and hard-bitten. It's difficult not to grin when those Rai strings dip and surge like the quicksilver thrust of a rapier. The music is vigorous, even thrilling at times and stamped throughout with Taha's throaty roar.
Early copies of The Definitive Collection include a documentary about the singer's return to Algeria. Taha comes across both as a genuinely likeable man, curious about the country of his birth and a passionate and engaged performer. Long may he continue to be so. --Colin Buttimer
Find more music at the BBC This link will take you off Amazon in a new window
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By sarah10409
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
I discovered Rachid Taha through the 'Rock the Kasbah' compilation album of a whole range of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African artists. This Taha 'best of' covers a wide range of his output, and is a great place for someone new to this amazing performer to figure out which eras and albums they might want to explore next.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By anonymous
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
...but maybe I was spolit by hearing the wonderful 'Tekitoi' before this. Still, this is nice and still has Taha's trademark shouty voice over some funky Arabic beats occasionally, which is pleasant.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
By Chris
Format:Audio CD
It was one of the great global rock'n'roll moments. Rachid Taha, the Algerian exile who grew up in France listening to English punk and went on to pioneer his own highly individual fusion of Algerian rai and western rock, announced that he had a very special guest. On stage, incongruously dressed in a neat black suit and white shirt, came Mick Jones, the Clash's guitarist. It was the cue for Taha to provide a reminder of his own rebel credentials, with a speech in French about Tony Blair and Palestine, before they crashed into a rousing version of Rock El Casbah, the Arabic treatment of the Clash's anthem that has become one of Taha's standards. It was a rousing end to a furious show.
Taha had also decided to wear suits (first black then red) as well as a large white hat, and he looked like some edgy, unpredictable spiv as he prowled across the stage, surrounded on one side by a rock line-up, with guitar, bass and drums, and on the other by a North African ensemble of oud, trumpet, flute and hand drums. When he is on form, like this, he can evoke a rare sense of danger, and he attacked his songs at full tilt, with the audience on their feet from the start.
The show coincided with the release of his Definitive Collection CD, but far from being an exercise in nostalgia, it showed how he has toughened up his act. So Voila Voila, an angry complaint about hostility to immigrants in France, that he recorded in the early 90s, was treated with even more venom than before, and the love song Habina, made famous in the 50s by the Egyptian singer Farid El Atrache, was now a stomping Arabic rocker.... Read more ›
Taha had also decided to wear suits (first black then red) as well as a large white hat, and he looked like some edgy, unpredictable spiv as he prowled across the stage, surrounded on one side by a rock line-up, with guitar, bass and drums, and on the other by a North African ensemble of oud, trumpet, flute and hand drums. When he is on form, like this, he can evoke a rare sense of danger, and he attacked his songs at full tilt, with the audience on their feet from the start.
The show coincided with the release of his Definitive Collection CD, but far from being an exercise in nostalgia, it showed how he has toughened up his act. So Voila Voila, an angry complaint about hostility to immigrants in France, that he recorded in the early 90s, was treated with even more venom than before, and the love song Habina, made famous in the 50s by the Egyptian singer Farid El Atrache, was now a stomping Arabic rocker.... Read more ›
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By ollie
Format:Audio CD
Rachid Taha was last in London for Brian Eno's Stop the War gig at the Astoria, with Eno weaving abstract musical shapes from his keyboard rig, and the ex-Clash guitarist Mick Jones coming on like a weird cross between Leonard Rossiter and Bela Lugosi for a definitive nailing of "Rock the Casbah". Tonight, Jones is back with Taha, but the band's live mix has changed since last year, and the crunching ferocity of the guitars is much less evident. Though Jones throws some lovely Keef Richards-indebted chords around on"Yarayah", his musical footprint seems to vanish in the sands of the set-closing "Rock the Casbah".
It all begins with a pining, escalating oud figure joined by drums, guitar, keyboards, and bass vamping towards the big entrance of Taha himself, dapper in a black suit and with his hat set at a rakish angle. While Taha and band previously came on like heavy rockers, pushing everything to the max, tonight the textures are more acoustic, a fuller sound with the trumpet perhaps a more dominant - and welcome - texture than the guitarist's sometimes over-egged rock posings. There are numerous songs from Diwan 2 in the set, and the guitar and trumpet meld strikingly on the openers "Rani" and "Hassbuhum".
It only takes until the second number for people in the audience to start moving. Women in particular stand up and dance. One of them, in a bright red top, soon finds herself on stage with Taha, swapping moves. Taha has often talked about the real rai being the rai of women, and you can see the man swimming in his natural element. After that, the house is on its feet, and pretty much stays there for the duration.... Read more ›
It all begins with a pining, escalating oud figure joined by drums, guitar, keyboards, and bass vamping towards the big entrance of Taha himself, dapper in a black suit and with his hat set at a rakish angle. While Taha and band previously came on like heavy rockers, pushing everything to the max, tonight the textures are more acoustic, a fuller sound with the trumpet perhaps a more dominant - and welcome - texture than the guitarist's sometimes over-egged rock posings. There are numerous songs from Diwan 2 in the set, and the guitar and trumpet meld strikingly on the openers "Rani" and "Hassbuhum".
It only takes until the second number for people in the audience to start moving. Women in particular stand up and dance. One of them, in a bright red top, soon finds herself on stage with Taha, swapping moves. Taha has often talked about the real rai being the rai of women, and you can see the man swimming in his natural element. After that, the house is on its feet, and pretty much stays there for the duration.... Read more ›
1 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By Music Fan
Format:Audio CD
A Franco-Algerian influenced as much by his North African roots as by the Clash, Bo Diddley and Giorgio Moroder, he flits from the Algerian exiles' anthem Ya Rayah to Arabic rewrites of Rock the Casbah, desert R&B ( Bent Sahra) and high-energy disco ( Indie). Douce France is a sarcastic interpretation of a Charles Trenet chanson, while Jungle Fiction mixes drum'n'bass with the surf punk of Dick Dale's Miserlou.
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