Trois

There's an essential difference between listening to Rachid Taha or Khaled and Acid Arab. These ten tracks are not songs per se, and one shouldn't hold them up to the same high standards set by above mentioned rai superstars. The tracks are for the most part hypnotic, trance-inducing dancefloor killers not hum-along ditties. The guest vocalists don't normally sing, but rather intone, the vocals embedded artfully in the beat-scapes as snippets and samples. The tracks are meant to engender a kind of cool, lowkey dancefloor transcendence. At times, Acid Arab aspire to something more and pull a catchy melody, as with ‘Halim Guelil (feat Cheb Halim)’ with its warbling auto-tune vocals and chiming, minimalistic melodramatic chordal progressions, superimposed with what sounds like ney flute, though this is probably synthesized. Across the board the tracks display aggressive, ominous techno beats overlaid with quavering oriental synth flourishes. Some flirt with raw analog acid-house knob twiddling, such as ‘Acid Chawi’ (Algerian Berber shepherd), which brings back memories of raving to Baby Ford circa 1989, but juxtaposed with Maghreb shepherd folk. And BTW, what's with the cover? Is the calligraphic rendering of ‘three’ (Trois) in Arabic, looking like the suggestive contour of a busty female torso an intended dig perhaps at conservative Arab mores rather in the manner of Acid Arab's first album cover (Musique de France) featuring a décolleté whisky drinking Arab femme? Go figure.