Saxophone, pygmy flute and harmonium: the musical selection of “Le Monde Afrique” #234
Every Friday, Le Monde Afrique presents three new musical releases from or inspired by the continent. This week, we travel to Algeria, Cameroon, and Ethiopia with recordings straight from the past.
“Habitek” by Freh Khodja
After the Sweet Rebels compilation and the reissue of albums by the group Les Abranis and the diva Warda, WeWantSounds continues its exploration of Algeria's musical past with Ken Andi Habib, a record by saxophonist Freh Khodja released in 1975 and reissued for the first time on Friday, July 4, in vinyl and digital formats.
This opus includes eight tracks recorded in Paris with Les Flammes, a group of immigrant musicians, and presents, according to the French label, a "masterful blend" of Arabic music, jazz, funk and Caribbean, Latin and Cape Verdean influences. Born in 1949 in Sidi Bel Abbès and arriving in France in 1968, Freh Khodja has distinguished himself as a performer, arranger and composer, notably for television.
“Forest Nativity”, by Francis Bebey
Heading to Cameroon with Francis Bebey 's (1929-2001) Magnetic Treasure . Hidden under this enigmatic title are twenty "neglected gems" found in the form of tapes in the house of his son, Patrick Bebey , and digitized by British label Africa Seven to release them in an album released at the end of May on vinyl and digital.
Between unreleased tracks, archive recordings and alternative versions of already known titles, we find, intact, the art of experimentation of the one who did not hesitate to combine pygmy flute and drum machine, classical guitar riffs and synthetic loops, navigating joyfully between folk songs, afrofunk and spoken word - as evidenced in particular by the track Forest Nativity.
“The Storm”, by Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru
Make way for church music with Church of Kidane Mehret (1972), an album by composer Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru, reissued at the end of May by the American label Mississippi Records on vinyl, cassette, CD, and digital. Born in Addis Ababa in 1923 and died in Jerusalem at the age of 99, this Orthodox nun learned classical music in Switzerland—where she was sent to boarding school as a child—before studying religious music in Ethiopia and then fleeing the Derg regime (1974-1987) for a monastery in Israel.
Recording herself in churches, she delivered pieces for piano, organ and harmonium which might have fallen into oblivion if they had not been rediscovered in 2006 by Francis Falceto, creator of the famous collection "Ethiopiques".
Find all the editorial team's musical favorites in the Le Monde Afrique YouTube playlist .
In Essaouira, the Gnaoua and World Music Festival returns from June 19 to 21 for its 26th edition. As usual, it features maalems, the masters and guardians of the Gnaoua tradition inherited from sub-Saharan slaves in Morocco.
But the event is also keen to highlight "moments of shared creation" which are "the soul of the festival," according to the organizers, embodying "a rare spirit of openness where differences intersect, mingle and give birth to intense, generous, unexpected works." This year, the young maalem Khalid Sansi will join forces with the Cuban musician Cimafunk, a phenomenon of Afro-Latin funk, while Morad El Marjan, a figure of the new Gnaoua generation, will meet the Tunisian oud player and jazzman Dhafer Youssef, and the Malian singer Rokia Koné will join Asmaa Hamzaoui and her group, Bnat Timbouktou, for an all-female show.
As for the "world music" section, the festival also features concerts by Ivorian reggae artist Tiken Jah Fakoly , his fellow balafonist Aly Keïta, Nigerian afrobeats star CKay, and, for Senegal, Compagnie Bakalama and singer Kya Loum. The full program can be found on the event's website .
Contribute
Reuse this content
Le Monde
