Hamdi Benani, Mehdi Haddab & Speed Caravan - Nuba Nova

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 170, August/September 2021.

Hamdi Benani, Mehdi Haddab & Speed Caravan
Nuba Nova
Buda Musique (51 mins)

Medhi Haddab's rai-punk outfit Speed Caravan have somewhat escaped my attention since their brilliant 2008 debut Kalashnik Love, but this album of classical Algerian malouf repertoire with master Hamdi Benani certainly made me prick up my ears. Although renowned as a classical singer and violinist, Benani was always a fearless innovator: the evidence is in the ease at which he twists his two instruments around whatever Speed Caravan throw his way.

The album starts like fairly standard rai fusion, but by the end of the first track it’s already evolved into Maghrebi psytrance led by Haddab’s Frampton-esque oud-vocoder. By then all bets are off. Sometimes there’s a distinctive Tuareg vibe, or a Latin lilt, or a full-on surf-rock growl, but it’s always with an unmistakable Algerian aesthetic, whether in the gasba flutes harking to rai’s origins or even the synths hitting all the tastiest quarter-tones in the maqam. All with that extra bit of punk attitude, of course.

Nuba Nova ended up being Benani’s final project; he died of COVID-19 in September 2020, aged 77. He was respected for pushing the boundaries, and this album does real justice to that legacy – as well as being a proper banger on its own merit.

Helsinki-Cotonou Ensemble - Helsinki-Cotonou Ensemble

First published in Songlines Magazine issue 170, August/September 2021.

Helsinki-Cotonou Ensemble
Helsinki-Cotonou Ensemble
Flowfish Records (39 min)

It took the Helsinki-Cotonou Ensemble until their fifth album and tenth year to go eponymous. It takes time to know thyself, after all, and the Ensemble pretty much have that worked out. In that way, this new album (referred to by those in the know as HCE5) is largely more of the same from them: West African-angled soul-jazz, albeit this time with occasional hip-hop courtesy of guest rapper Synik from Zimbabwe.

Made remotely in Finland and Benin, with band members working out how to use recording software on-the-fly, HCE5 nevertheless sounds as cohesive and polished as if the group were all together in the studio. The resulting Afrosoul is smooth and uplifting – real easy morning Radio 2 vibes – that does slip into cheesiness fairly often. It’s best when they give the sound a bit of an edge, such as on ‘Djogbé Ana Zon’, which nods to modern Afropop alongside xylophones and some shrieking jazz solos; it’s a slightly more challenging listen, and all the more rewarding for it.

Appropriately for a self-titled album, the Helsinki-Cotonou Ensemble have solidified the sound that they have been working on for the past decade. They stick to what they know, and they do it well.