Bahdja

Though best known for jazz, Manuel Hermia's oeuvre traverses a wide range of musical genres and styles. The Belgian saxophonist, who also plays the clarinet and bansuri (bamboo flute), often integrates African, Arab and Indian influences into his solo and collaboration works. He's even invented a theory named ‘rajazz’ that intricately combines tonal and modal musical systems in an attempt to bring together elements of jazz and ragas. Yet for all that innovation, science, and technical skill, it's hard to find something on this album that makes for compelling listening.

There's a quirky, Gypsy-like quality to some of the numbers and Algerian violinist Kheireddine Mkachiche (a regular in jazz trumpeter Jon Hassell's band) provides a welcome lift on tracks such as the up-tempo ‘Maghrébine’. But, at nine-and-a-half-minutes long, ‘The Smell of the Desert’, while probably imagined as an epic soundscape, sounds like mere meandering self-indulgence on the part of two accomplished artists who have produced an album that is, unfortunately, less than the sum of its parts.