CD Reviews

Rachid Taha

Rock El Casbah: The Best Of . . . | Wrasse

By JEFF TAMARKIN | June 17, 2008

4.0 Stars

The cover photo and title are the tipoff to the uninitiated: looking like Dylan at his most grizzled and evoking the Clash, Rachid Taha moved beyond raï music from the start of his solo career in the mid ’90s just as surely as those two influences reconstituted what their respective progenitors had taught them. But Taha has lived in France far longer than he did in his native Algeria, and though he’s always celebrated his ethnic roots, his prolonged exposure to rock and electronics has ensured that he’d never subscribe to purism. On this first career-spanning collection, which skitters around chronologically, the consistency of his work is more evident than ever before. One reason is that virtually all of it was produced by former prog-rock guitarist Steve Hillage, who keeps Taha balanced on the tightrope between tradition and futurism. Another is his sturdy vision: early and often rawer tracks (“Kelma,” “Barbès”) smash into the more tech-savvy recent ones (“Ya Rayah,” the Clash cover) without ever jarring, and the politically charged (“Barra Barra,” “Menfi”) complements the nakedly poetic (“Hey Anta”). Taha has always been an insurgent (ever wonder what Arab surf music might sound like? — check out “Jungle Fiction”), and these 15 tracks prove that Middle Eastern–rooted music can be as subversive and riotous as any.