Unwound

May 30 - June 6, 1 9 9 6

***1/2 Rachid Taha

OLÉ, OLÉ

(Mango/Island)

In exile from Algeria, Taha lives and records in Paris, but unlike his fellow Algerians he does not sing rai. Shaped like the high-tech, fast-remix music of London dance clubs, his US debut CD sounds like London by night. But not merely London. Taha takes full advantage of Paris pop's unusually many-cultured range of voices. Tribal jams like "Zaâma," "Nokta," and "Jungle Fiction" rattle through time and place from Bo Diddley to Manu Dibango to Enigma, visions spun by a half-masked Taha chanting in French Senegalese mbalax, or seductively wailing Arabic. Whatever it takes: the jungle-sunshine hit style of Deep Forest resonates through dreamscapes like "Comme un chien" and "Kelma." In "Boire," Taha cries and girl singers sigh up against the whirling rhythm, as in a Cerrone song. And the sweet young thing who, duetting with Taha in a rare laid-back mode, coos "Your secret is safe with me" throughout the delicate "Valencia" sounds exactly like one of those lithe little sopranos who make Parisian pop go blush. Taha's persuasive message is, "Have it all."

-- Michael Freedberg