Diwan 2

If you are a sentient life form with the capacity for aural perception then beg borrow or steal to get this. If not available from your local Planet's Amazon then try UWW.Amazon.AlphaCentauri.Univ.Wit in combination with ability and delivery that can cross ANY language barrier. This clever witty "Maghreb Chansonnier" shows that what we all share in common, far exceeds any cultural differences we may imagine exist, and brings a smile to the most alien of faces.

Two years on from his celebrated reworking of the Clash anthem, Rock el Casbah, Rachid Taha has gone back to his roots. It's been eight years since the wild man of French-Algerian music released his first Diwan album, explaining: "This is my version of John Lennon's Rock'n'Roll album - like him, I want to sing the songs that influence me and pay homage to my culture." This time there are songs from Blaoui Houari, a major star in Algeria in the 1950s, and Mohamed Mazouni, whose Ecoute Moi Camarade was discovered by Rachid in his parents' attic. They are updated with classy, rhythmic production work from Steve Hillage, making use of anything from hand drums to sweeping strings.Taha proves that he can handle slinky, declamatory songs and ballads, but the best tracks are the two written by him and Hillage, with the reed flute and percussion driving on his urgent vocals.

A belated follow-up to his 1998 classic Diwan, Rachid Taha's latest again pairs the French-Algerian with producer Steve Hillage, once guitarist with proto-trance pranksters Gong, on a selection of songs old and new designed to offer a survey of North African styles and concerns. Musically, this accommodates everything from the cascades of kora glissandi on "Agatha" to the blend of ney flute and oud on "Rani", with the breathiness of Kadi Bouguenaya's Gasbar Oranais lending a wonderful grainy texture to the hypnotic desert-blues of "Josephine" and "Ah Mon Amour". Contrary to the edgy attitudes of some rai music, there's an underlying good humour and liberality to several songs: in "Agatha", a cuckolded husband makes light of his wife's light-skinned baby ("Oh pals, it's better to take it for a joke/ No need to cry for so little matter"), while there's more humour in Taha's corpsing chuckle in "Ecoute Moi Camarade", whose reggae-beat groove, Arabic strings and muted jazz trumpet is the CD's most intriguing crossover.

A wild man beloved by Joe Strummer, the Rock the Casbah showman reveals his gentler side in a collection that harks back to a kinder, gentler era. His long-time collaborator Steve Hillage has done a remarkably sympathetic job of the production: the best of the percussion-led songs sound as if they have just burst out of the speakers of an Algiers taxi. French and Arabic lyrics swoop across keening string arrangements. The undisputed highlight, Agatha, offers a sardonic running commentary on sexual politics, as a suspicious husband comes to terms with a new-born child's dubious ancestry.

This is another thoroughly excellent album from one of the most interesting artists currently working anywhere in the world. Despite the title hearkening back to 1998's excellent Diwan, this album represents more of a spiral upward than a return. Only about half of the tracks represent the sort of rocked-up versions of classic Arab pop found on Diwan, although they -- especially Rani, Gana el Hawa, and an Oum Kalthoum song -- are excellent. The centerpieces of the album are really on opposite wings of that: First, the relatively straightforward versions of the 50s chanson Ecoute-moi Camarade and Senegalese pop song Agatha, both in French, dealing with political issues on a personal level. Then, the only two tracks written by Taha and Hillage, Josephine and Ah Mon Amour, both of which are trance-influenced tracks full of distorted loops and percussion that sit well next to similar tracks on his previous two studio albums. The result is a sort of wide-ranging retrospective of Taha's styles and interests, updated to now.Interestingly, in contrast to Tekitoi, which leaned towards arena rock at times, there is an almost total absence of electric guitar on this record. Lots of acoustic guitar, though -- apart from the two original songs, the production is very warm and rootsy, much more so than the first Diwan.If I were trying to introduce Taha to neophytes -- which I do all the time -- I would probably send them to Tekitoi or Made In Medina first. But someone starting with this album could fall in love with Taha's music as much as I did starting with Diwan and Medina.

In contrast to the more in your face "Tekitoi", he has gone for traditional instruments like the gasba (flute) and guellal (percussion) to get the sound he was after.The stand out track though is not one of the rediscovered classics, as good as they are, it is the anti-racist anthem "Agatha". With its catchy-as-hell chanted lyrics, a rolling bass and distinctively Arabic strings, this tune is one guaranteed to have you singing along irrespective of your level of French.Assuming your French is as rusty as mine, you'll be pleased to see that the lyrics have been translated and recount a tale of doubted parentage told with a dark and drunken humour.The album opens with "Ecoute-moi camarade", which Rachid Taha (and this sounds like a Freudian metaphor) apparently discovered while rifling his parents attic. As with "Agatha", there is more feminine treachery afoot as the poor lover tries to talk himself out of being in love with a woman he suspects is cheating on him.Again we have a crashing chorus to carry the song along and no doubt both these tracks will do the business in France (why oh why can't we ever hear music like this on our most popular radio stations? Do they think we are all fools?)Before you assume, Rachid Taha is exercising a misogynist tendency, the rest of the tracks deal with epic loves and the experiences of the many caught between cultures and on some tracks he covers off both as in "Gana el Hawa".The album was recorded in London, Paris and Cairo and sees him back with studio whiz and legend in his own right Steve Hillage.Rachid Taha is an artist at the top of his game with the people around him to get the job done.Whether you are a lover of Khaled and fancy something a bit rougher or were blown away by this African soul rebel's last album and want to hear him explore the sounds of his native Algeria further, this is an essential album.