On the Path of the Shirazis

This album is aimed squarely at festival dance music tents and clubs. Afro-Electric DJ ARASHKHA (Arash Khalatbari) is a man of many talents. Born in Tehran, he moved with his family to France as a teenager and is now based in Réunion. There, aside from his music, he is an architect with a doctorate in urban sociology.

The album traces the story of a Persian dynasty from the city of Shiraz which colonised a territorial path from Tanzania and Zanzibar to the Comoros Islands. Each track's location is signposted by the samples artfully sprinkled across its rhythms: kimbila flutes from Congo, Kikuyu singing from Kenya, the sounds of taarab and its kindred twarab forms from Zanzibar and the Comoros. It's a less interesting listen at home, given the standardisation of rhythms of its house music aesthetic, but will pay dividends on a dancefloor. The set's infectious highlight, wherever you listen, is ‘Romance of a Rodrigues Sailor’, romance being a musical style from Rodrigues Island in the Indian Ocean, with roots in ‘old French songs brought by the sailors.’ With its accordion figure and the soul-stirring singing of local hero Wendadasoul, ARASHKHA creates what sounds like a hit of the summer.