Like the beaten-down Hamburg Turk in the recent film Head-On, combat rock nomad Rachid Taha regularly explodes on Tekitoi with a blistering interrogation of the new Arab identity in all its displaced confusion and contradictions. “Who are you?” inquires the album’s title track in punning French. Brash and defiant sonic combinations trump stylistic consistency on Taha’s seventh solo album since departing from Franco-Arab hybrid group Carte de Sejour. An irrepressible piss-taker, Taha declares “world music a cheap “term for shopkeepers” on Tekitoi’s accompanying DVD documentary, disavowing his Algerian Rai heritage along the way. “I’m like a Rai Cooder,” he smirks.

Longtime Taha accomplice Steve Hillage (yes, he of trippy ‘70s prog rockers Gong) meshes grimy guitars and synths with Oriental strings and traditional percussion in tunes drawing on the latest street sounds from Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, and the former Soviet Union. Brian Eno even drops in to bring refreshing ambience to “Dima (Always).” And as Taha’s Clash cover demonstrates, nobody Rock the Casbah quite so convincingly as this rock star without a country.

-Richard Gehr