* * * * * * * *

Thursday,
October, 4,
2007

Fly Home Page      
Africa/Middle East: Reviews

FLY HOME
NEWS
AFRICA/MIDDLE EAST
-Features
-Reviews
-City Guides/Events
ASIA/PACIFIC
CARIBBEAN
EUROPE
LATIN AMERICA
US/CANADA
- - - - - -
FLY VIDEO
FLYkr GALLERIES
FLY CD SHOP (UK)
FLY CD STORE (US)




world music ring


WOMEX


www.flickr.com
This is a Flickr badge showing public photos from flykr. Make your own badge here.

Akim El Sikameya - Un Chouia D'amour

The cover of the album doesn’t augur too well — Akim looks like a young Bill Murray who’s just got lucky in a tart’s boudoir. So it’s a relief to hear his extraordinary voice and violin playing gratifyingly wrapped in some sweet and catchy tunes

Please note this is an old page and Fly Global Music has now moved. Please follow this link and search for the entry in the new site.

Akim El Sikameya astonished Womad audiences a couple of years back with a voice that seems bereft of all masculinity, ranging from a choirboy’s alto to that of a husky female. It’s always a beautiful sound, however, and the light and airy Mediterranean pop songs here are a delight to behold. Violin, accordion, charango, bouzouki, mandolin, piano, percussion and guitar come together in a mellifluous blend of French-style (and quite often French language) chanson, flamenco, tango, and the chaabi Arabic pop style more familiar in Akim’s native Algeria.

Highlights include the jauntily catchy opener and title track, which would do well on the continent’s more discerning dance floors. The Arabic-language ‘Le Sultan Tyran’ makes superb use of Aster Piazzolla’s ‘Libertango’ motif, with mournful, eloquent phrasing from Akim on violin dovetailing with Philippe Eidel’s accordeon. And the jazzier, more reflective second half of the CD opens with ‘Cahwa et Fleur D’Oranger’, which features some delightful bouzouki work from Taofik Farah, funky brass figures and Akim El Sikameya’s voice at its best - part Smokey Robinson, part French-Algerian pop-rai star Faudel.

A handful of the tracks don’t work quite so well, veering a bit to close to lounge pop at times. But the best moments make this a very rewarding collection indeed, with or without the tacky album cover.



Visit Fly's new Amazon shops:
Fly Music Shop UK / Fly Music Shop US
CC Some Rights Reserved FLY 2011 || add to del.icio.us Add to Del.icio.us