Conflict can often inspire great art, but when a country descends into chaos it often takes down its culture with it. Yet despite the fact that Algeria spent most of the 20th century either colonized by the French or reeling from the effects of the aftershocks of an independence movement that had repressive Islamist, authoritarian, and military factions vying to fill the political vacuum, Algeria's rai and chaabi music scene thrived. Not that it didn't take some effort: Censorship and repression remain prevalent, and several of the country's greatest musicians currently live in exile.
Even then, the tale of Abdel Hadi Halo and the El Gusto Orchestra marks something of a triumph. While working on an upcoming documentary chronicling Algerian chaabi (the more traditional of Algeria's two prominent strains of pop music), filmmaker Safinez Bousbia tipped off Damon Albarn, who headed down to the Conservatoire D'Algiers with his Honest Jon's crew to capture Abdel Hadi Halo & the El Gusto Orchestra of Algiers, who performed after a lengthy period spent underground while Algeria developed more hospitable mores.
The project's already drawn more than a few comparisons to the Buena Vista Social Club, and the comparison largely holds. Here's a once vibrant music, chaabi, making a comeback, brought back into the spotlight thanks to the dogged work of a select few but mostly Halo, who tracked down graduates (all aged 60 to 90) of his chaabi pioneer father El Hadj El Anka's music school, and brought them together in Algiers. (The story gets better, too: After meeting with Albarn, Abdel Hadi Halo reunited with several Jewish-Algerian musicians who had long since fled the country. That reunion and a couple of historic gigs will be documented in yet another upcoming film and reportedly further recordings.)
Produced by Albarn (in the Ry Cooder position), Abdel Hadi Halo & the El Gusto Orchestra of Algiers does justice to its name, although even though "el gusto" translates to "good mood" or "joy," there's a melancholy air hovering over the music. With Halo on piano, he leads the large Orchestra through half a dozen often-long compositions, each a subtle and seamless blend of North African, French, Andalucian, and Latin American influences. Rhythm reigns supreme, with the small army of oud, qanun, bendir and derbouka meshing with accordion, violins, flute, and, of course, piano as various singers lay bare their souls.
One can only anticipate the elated faces captured in the forthcoming film, as these musicians are given the opportunity to reacquaint themselves with this music once again. Fortunately much of that exhilaration is conveyed by the impassioned performances themselves. More exotic, mysterious, and religious than its Cuban counterpart, El Gusto Orchestra of Algiers is nonetheless just as stirring and sometimes quite surprising. "Fatouma", for example, spends most of its 10 minutes in a near trance-like state before shifting into double time two minutes before its conclusion. The elegiac start of "Fi Bahr El Hob Mwadji, Kifash Nwassi", featuring several well-integrated solos, extends for several minutes before erupting in a din of excitement; following it, the much, much shorter "Min Yaati Kalbou Lil Melah" works as a palate cleanser. In "Lalla Fatima", Halo's pounding piano injects an element of European otherness in music too often branded "the other" itself, at least from the Western vantage.
"Win Saadi" erupts with massed vocals and instruments, while the musical and vocal call and response of the album's climax, "Mal Djifni", is downright virtuoso, nearly reaching the 20-minute mark but feeling like it could go on even longer. The character of each instrument and voice is respectively retained by Albarn's hands-off production, which sounds like it consisted largely of getting the mics in the right place, or close enough, and simply stepping away quietly, letting these masters do what they do best as he, the ethnographer-as-fan, surely sat back and smiled while the real experts did the work.
