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CD Review
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Muzikifan, CD Review >>
It's hard to take Putumayo seriously. Their packaging is pukeworthy: I've yet to meet a single person who likes the faux naif Nicola Heindl artwork. I wasn't impressed with their last Malian compilation: it was way too lite, considering their claim "Mali is the new Cuba!" which is preposterous but, on one level, Mali does have great music waiting to be heard; their recent ITALIAN CAFE was lame: two artists that sounded like Paolo Conte, neither of them Paolo Conte (and to make matters worse two tracks from each of them), no sign of Mina, queen bee of Italian street cool, or even Lucille Galeazzi who is one of the best Italian singers right now, and it was stretching to fill 45 minutes. In short a wretched mess. But then along comes NORTH AFRICAN GROOVE which picks up where ARABIC GROOVE left off: another set of great Casbah-rocking jams. ARABIC GROOVE stands as one of the best sequenced and consistently great compilations ever. NORTH AFRICAN GROOVE falls just below. The centrepiece is Khaled's "Ya Rayi," and everyone else ebbs and flows around it with the same metronomical insistence. But thankfully, it's not all techno: Amr Diab from Egypt has traditional instrumentation with a "Gypsy Kings" feel to the flamenco guitar which, in this context, is not unpleasant. French-born Rai singer Faudel does have synths but at least one of them is set to "accordion" mode. He's keeping Algerian music vital in the Paris suburbs. The cat-like mewing of one of his keyboards is overridden by the great slappy percussion. Amina who moved from Tunisia to Paris and became a star in 1989 with an entry in the hokey Eurovision song contest, gives us one of her solid hits "Dis-moi pourquoi," with a solid bass thwock. There's funk from Cheb Mami and disco from Mohamed Mounir, the Nubian Nut, on here. Mounir is from Aswan and apparently influenced by reggae but this is straight disco dance redeemed by the segue into the last track by Eastenders, a deejay from Germany who collaborates with Turks and Egyptians for a trans-Euro sound. "On the ride" is one of the strongest cuts on here, and bound to get you moving and grooving. Play it back on the track, Jack! 06/20/05
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