Chants Mystiques d’Algérie

Four years on from Renyate, her tribute to great, if sometimes marginal, Algerian female singers such as Meriem Fekkai, Fadela Dziria and Cheikha Rimitti, Houria Aichi takes on a more sacred repertoire in this release. e material was mainly learned in her travels around Algeria and could be described as ‘folk Sufism,’ with songs of the saints and daily rituals. Aichi was born in Algeria and is a celebrated Chaoui singer but she has lived in Paris for decades and has an almost academic approach to these songs – mainly fairly austere interpretations of what can be, in other settings, ecstatic chants.

As enjoyable as these interpretations are – and they are filled with genuine empathy and spiritual he? – they tend towards the subdued. at has its own beau?, notably in Aichi’s solo singing on ‘Chant Rituel du Gourara’ and in Ali Bensadoun’s atmospheric flute playing on tracks like ‘Les Pèlerins’. A disc of finesse and restrained fervour.