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Sample Track 1:
"Rock el Casbah" from Tékitoi
Sample Track 2:
"Winta" from Tékitoi
Sample Track 3:
"Dima (Always)" from Tékitoi
Buy Recording:
Tékitoi
Layer 2
CD Review

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Reno Journal-Gazette, CD Review >>

One of the first things that will strike listeners of this growling and seething French-Algerian album is longtime Arab-punk firebrand Rachid Taha's cover of The Clash's "Rock The Casbah," with its English chorus intact. It's a good version, retaining much of the original's guts and adding an Arabic dimension with hand drums, lute and flute. And given the rage against injustice in the Arab world translated in some of the liner notes, the song seems to have a fresh bite. This is the kind of music that Taha specializes in: a kind of Western rock reconstructed in Arabic terms and modes. "Safi" demonstrates it best, coalescing a traditional orchestra and a screaming chorus with Mediterranean and electronic rhythms. The title track, a duet with French singer Christian Olivier translated "who are you?" is a picture of two cultures confronting each other face to face and realizing that "the other" is not so different after all.
 06/17/05 >> go there
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