December 7, 2022
High Tide Listening Post 362. Like water, music flows; like music, water heals. Souad Massi may not be the first artist to link these two essential life forces, but on her seventh studio album she combines them in spectacular and oracular fashion. Sequana takes its...
September 14, 2022
Shelter from the Storm Listening Post 357. Imarhan’s third album takes its name from the dwellings the Tuareg band’s forebears built in their first permanent settlements—and it derives added meaning from the modern shelter they erected in Tamanrasset, in southern...
January 5, 2022
The Mirror Has Two Faces Listening Post 332. Nouara is Algerian chaâbi at its best—11 evocative folk-blues songs of elusive love, nostalgia, hope and self-awareness, served in Kamel El Harrachi’s silky voice. Throughout his career the artist’s challenge has actually...
February 25, 2020
Truth to Power Listening Post 241. “Government,” observed Ibn Khaldoun, “is an institution that prevents injustices, except those it commits itself.” For more than a year, peaceful demonstrators in Algeria have been challenging an entrenched, corrupt regime bent on...
August 29, 2016
Remastered Poetry Listening Post 62. Dylan and Marley, Fela Kuti and Ramy Essam— musicians can move the world. Likewise Souad Massi, Algeria’s greatest female singer, who grew up on American music, relocated to France following death threats earned in a political rock...
