Yemen Blues

Shaped by his origins as a Yemeni Jew, the fascinating voice of Ravid Kahalani brilliantly evokes the musical universe of his ancestors. Stretching like a slow caravan crossing the desert, it winds through West African blues and the thousand and one vibrations of the Sahara, Nubian, Gnawi, Touaregs, Saidi and Bambara.
This luscious mix of jazz tonalities, which also crosses into funk, rings out as an ode to African grooves and a modern echo of the ancestral rhythms. Ravid Kahalani creates a canvas printed both with deep emotions when his rasping laments tear open the heavens,but also with popular jubilation when the percussions, the oud, the cello and the brass instruments in dance that is complex and resolutely modern. A joyful oasis in the middle of the desert ...