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VA – 1970s Algerian Folk and Pop (2014)
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This LP is the Sublime Frequencies label’s third dip into Algeria’s turbulent airwaves. The first was one of the label’s patented radio compilations, and it gave an itchy-fingered survey of the nation’s cultural variety. Spin the dial and you might hit French and Arabic pop, desert music, raï, or film music. The second went deep, exposing the roots of raï, which was a soundtrack for youth rebellion before it got buffed up and turned into export fodder for the world music marketplace.
1970s Algerian Folk and Pop is a companion to 1970s Algerian Proto-Raï Underground, but it casts a much wider net. It shows that the diversity captured on Radio Algeria was not an anomaly, but also expresses a melancholy peculiar to its moment in time.
In the 1970s, Algerian independence from France was a recent event. Fueled by oil revenue and eager to establish a national identity, the military-backed socialist government was heavy-handed in its exercise of power, but also willing to spend money to liberalize the economy and Arabize the culture. Prior to its rehabilitation in the ’80s, raï music was suppressed because it was identified with drinking and dancing; the music on this collection was not, but it still expresses a response to living under heavy manners. Annotator Omar Zelig notes that it was still a time when a guy with long hair and sideburns could be given an involuntary buzz cut by the military police.
But it would be an oversimplification to suggest that this LP’s music has nothing to do with raï. The two tracks by Les Djinns use traditional rhythms very similar to those used by pre-drum machine raï; Rachid and Fethi Baba’s tracks suggest an awareness of Curtis Mayfield and Erkin Koray, but they would also go on to run a studio that recorded tons of raï in the 70s. What’s different here is the degree to which this music looks outside of Algeria. When the electric sitar drops out in Rachid and Fethi’s “Habit En Ich,” it’s replaced by tight unison guitar and bass runs that sound straight out of the prog-rock playbook.
Abranis’ “Chenagh Le Blues” has a funky, stop-start rhythm that sounds like New Orleans by way of The Doors, with a bit of psychedelic guitar burn. Ahmed Malik’s moody soundtrack instrumentals not only sound like Morricone on a good day, they’re reminders that the northern Sahara was one of the preferred places to film spaghetti instrumentals. And Idir and Zahra’s duet “A Vava Inouva” signals its exquisite air of regret as much with its flamenco guitar licks as with delicate, folky singing that could satisfy a Nana Mouskoui or Mary Hopkin fan.
But while the music expresses a cosmopolitan awareness of pop music from the U.S. and Europe, it is also suffused with sadness. These musicians could listen to and be influenced by the rest of the world, but at a remove. Algeria had no place for the sort of youth culture that revolutionized the west; in a land only a decade removed from a real revolution, no one was going to share power with a bunch of libidinous young ‘uns, and they knew it. The best they could hope for was to lay a small chunk of their dreams on 45-rpm singles, and then keep out of the way.