Marchez Noir

Amazigh Kateb, who was the lead singer of Gnawa Diffusion, has turned down the rock from his old group and dialled up other elements on his first solo album, perhaps in a move to re-connect with his Algerian roots (he is currently based in Grenoble). Two tracks use texts written by his father, the great novelist and playwright Kateb Yacine: the reggae-tinged ‘Africain’ and the opener ‘Bonjour’, which gives the erroneous impression this might be a retro rai album along the lines of Khaled’s Liberté from last year. But by the second track we are in Jamaican ragga territory, and the album intermittently but effectively uses DJ Boulaone to provide dance beats and scratching – notably on the surreal ‘Michel Choukrane’, a tale of a prophet ‘smoking a cigar’ bringing the bad news that Mr Mastercard is not coming from the sky’. Other tracks in French and Berber are more outspoken against colonialism in the Maghreb and Palestine. The title-track cleverly mixes a reference to the black market (the only place you could find his previous records in Algeria) and black marches, like those of the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King.

I suspect he adapted the tune of the track ‘Mocba’ from Boney M’s ‘Rasputin’, although Kateb’s Gnawa influences are to the fore elsewhere on the album, as you’d expect from such a fine gimbri player. Underpinned by Amar Chaoui’s sensitive percussion, a non-cheesy synth – a lot of chunky Hammond organ sounds instead – from Mehdui Ziouech and impressive mandola and even banjo work from Mohammed Abdennour, this album is continually surprising, if at times a little unfocused. It sounds like an artist with a new lease of creative energy.