WATCHA CLAN
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WATCHA CLAN

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Press


"Press Review"

MAIN ARTICLES AND RADIO INTERVIEWS


WORD MUSIC CHARTS EUROPE
march 2008
Watcha Clan on number one position!

"Kicks off in fine dramatic style with radical beats, radio voices, symphonic strings and tremulous oud, and the rest of the album doesn’t let up, with Arabic chants, Balkan sensibilities, Euro-trash disco grooves and melodies that stay stuck deep inside the cranium. Vocalist Sista K rules the roost with authoritative vocalising and is supported by band and a plethora of guests. Will wake the neighbours."

FUNKHAUSEUROPA / Germany
14/02/2008

"Das neue Watcha Clan Album ist ein wahres Produkt der Globalisierung : von einer französischen Band geschrieben und produziert, un Algerien und Marokko aufgenommen, in Berlin beim Label "Piranha" erschienen."

JEWISH TELEGRAPH / UK
4/04/2008
50 000 exemplaries

"What do electronic dance beats, drum and bass and reggae have in common with traditional Mediterranean, Arabic and Balkan sounds? The answer is that they have been fused together to form the basis of Watcha Clan's latest album, Diaspora hi-fi - a Mediterranean Caravan..."

BANG BANG / Canada
october 2007
35 000 exemplaries

"Watcha Clan est considéré comme l'un des groupes phares de la nouvelle scène méditerranéenne et gagne de plus en plus d'admiration à travers le monde(...). Ce qui distingue Watcha Clan, c'est sa musique métissée très emblématique du brassage culturel marseillais."

HET PAROOL / Holland
6/09/2007
89 000 exemplaries

"Watcha Clan uit Marseille, met de charismatische zangeres Sista Ka als blikvanger, was de ontdekking van de avond."


SUR LA MEME LONGUEUR D'ONDES / France
march 2008
100 000 exemplaries

Cover + 3 pages article "Exodus to Promise Land"

"Les sonorités sont chaudes et épicées, jouant à saute-mouton avec les rythmes froids de l'electro. Tout ici n'est question que de "rencontres", de "métissage" et d'"ouverture", quand se côtoie l'Afrique contemporaine et ancestrale sur fond de détours tziganes ou espagnols. Une alchime roots qui bat la modernité à son propre jeu, travestissant les chants orientaux ou phrasés ragga à la sauce jungle".

MONDOMIX / France
march 2008
100 000 exemplaries

"Adapté pour la scène, cet album aux sonorités multiples donne à entendre des chants en français, arabe, yiddish, hébreu et anglais. Dans un rodéo à cheval sur plusieurs rives de la Méditerranée. Il révèle devant le public des constructions différentes, de très habiles remixes live, car prolongeant l'énergie sans prendre le risque de la redite."


RADIO INTERVIEWS

MONDOMIX / FRANCE
MARCH 2008

Diaspora Hi-Fi
Watcha Clan | France

Trois instrumentaux et douze chansons : cinq en arabe, deux en hébreu, deux se partageant entre anglais et français, une en anglais, une en espagnol. L’intention est claire. Pas question de revendiquer l’appartenance à une terre précise. Chez Watcha Clan, on a peut-être sa maison à Marseille, mais on est d’esprit franchement nomade. Alors pour ouvrir l’album, spéciale dédicace à Theodore Monod (1902-2000) dont la voix samplée loue la résistance des nomades, ces hommes libres qui gênent tant les gouvernants. «Pour les ministères, pour les bureaux, un homme libre c’est inacceptable » déclare le naturaliste humaniste. Le sampling, la copie d’éléments musicaux et vocaux réinjectés dans le propos créatif du groupe, joue radicalement la carte globe-trotter. Il y a du voyage à profusion dans ce patchwork cousu au fil électronique qui miroite de lumières sonores balkaniques, jamaïcaines ou maghrébines.

RADIO NOVA
30 mars 2008

Néo Géo

Ce dimanche, Bintou reçoit le crew multi-ethnique (tant dans sa musique que dans ses origines) Watcha Clan, basé à Marseille. Ils nous présenteront leur nouvel album "Diaspora Hi-Fi" déjà dans les bacs, et seront en concert à Marseille puis Paris.


FRANCE INTER
Mercredi 26 mars 2008

Le fou du roi par Stéphane Bern
du lundi au vendredi de 11h à 12h30

Watcha Clan
Nous recevons Sista Ka, Suprême Clem, Matt Labesse et Nassim du groupe WATCHA CLAN.
Cela fait deja dix ans que ce groupe jongle avec les rythmes (celui du chaabi et du hip-hop), les langues (français, arabe, hebreu et anglais) et les influences musicales (comme celles des rengaines d'Europe de l'Est).
Leur nouvel album Diaspora Hi-Fi revendique la libertÈ d'esprit des gens du voyage.


FRANCE INTER
Lundi 14 avril 2008
Sous les Etoiles exactement par Serge Levaillant


CANAL +
28 mars 2008

"La Matinale" morning show
Le Son du Jour
"Watcha Clan" - Balkan Qoulou extrait de l'album "Diaspora Hi-Fi"

RFI
Musique du monde

RFI
Culture Vive

RADIO GRENOUILLE
Cocotte Musique - Armando Cox





- international


Discography

CD : NOMADES A.K.A
2002 / Vaï la bott rec.

CD : LE BASTION
2005 / Vaï la bott rec.

CD : LIVE INJECTION
2006 / Vaï la bott rec.

CD / LP : DIASPORA HI-FI
2008 / Vaï la bott rec. – Piranha Musik

Photos

Bio

WATCHA CLAN
presents
DIASPORA HI-FI
A mediterranean caravan

It's been ten years since the music of Watcha Clan started moving to the rhythm of the waters of the Mediterranean. The ten year watershed has marked a new start for the band. After contemplating the idea of changing their name as a form of rebirth to revitalise their creativity, the reunited clan is still with us to present Diaspora Hi-Fi, their new project. The party continues!

This fluid scene's distinctive electro sound powers the clan into new territory. Speeding forward through frenetic rhythms or rendering homage to their roots, the clan, a real family embodied in the voice of Sista K, never forget their destiny or their mission, their search for space and freedom. Above all, they are true nomads in the world of music.

Nomadic means independent, and it has always been crucial for this clan to make their own decisions, go forward at their own pace and set their own agenda. As they go out on the road again Sista K, Clem, Matt and Soupa Ju - who has moved his talents from the sunlight to the comparative obscurity of management to great effect - met the independent Berlin label PIRANHA Musik. By a happy calendar coincidence, this is PIRANHA's 20th year in business, and so this fusion of worlds and meeting of generations came at the perfect time. In a buzz of mutual esteem, the two parties decided to nurture the Diaspora Hi-Fi project together.

Always on the move, Sista K's family history is intimately entwined with her music. She's Ashkenazi through her mother and Sephardic and Berber through her father, an Algerian independence fighter who was French before he was born (an 1870 decree gave French nationality to the Jewish population of Algeria). She could have been born in the land of Israel, where her parents met, but saw the light of day in the shadow of Marseille's Bonne MËre. La Belle de Mai, La Busserine, Le Merlanare all inextricably part of her personal geography; her own Bermuda Triangle in which she could never loose herself and which helped forge the consummate woman she is today. "Back then," she says, "in the northern quarters of Marseilles, no-one cared who was Jewish and who was Muslim. We all lived together, and life was always stimulating."

Jewish, Muslim, Catholic or atheist? It doesn't matter, she seems to be saying, as long as you have faith. Faith in man and woman, for no other reason than brotherhood, Sista! This expansion of the heart denies the very idea of borders. Whether free to move or driven to do so, these men and women represent a possible future, a plausible future, even if Theodore Monod, the wise man's wise man whom they sample generously, once said: "For the State, a free man is unacceptable?"

Altruistic dealers in cultures and humanities, they juggle rhythms and languages (French, Arabic, Hebrew, English) to the beat of the memories they have, the people they meet and the places they see. From the Eastern European melodies Karine's mother sang to her when she was little to the chaabi, the Algerian blues Nassim the "khouya" (brother) from Oran, a friend and collaborator since 2003, introduced them to, from the cherifian grooves of Amarg Fusion to the burning lyrics of the Bourbia brothers, the MCs of Tox from Oran, to the hip-hop kick that appeals to Clem, the clan's music man and sampler extraordinaire; Diaspora Hi-Fi, their new album, sings with the freedom of spirit of travelling people. "It gets us involved, it motivates us," Ka and Clem say in chorus. "We saw where our road was leading, and we've been on that road since." They're free and committed, and above all, they are nomads.