Global Control/Invisible Invasion

Tunisian producer Sofyann Ben Youssef, aka AMMAR 808, created an extraordinary album Maghreb United, a Top of the World in #139 and one of our picks of 2018. It brought together three amazing voices from Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco with traditional instruments and Ben Youssef’s electronics. On this new album Ben Youssef ventures into a new territory, South India’s Tamil Nadu. ‘Since the beginning of time, man has looked to a sky populated with gods and aliens, and has made offerings of devotion and sacrifice as a way offacing fears of an unknown future, he writes in the notes. You certainly get a feeling of a maelstrom of music in the city of Chennai where the live recordings were made. The album features contesting voices from the Mahabharata, the reedy whine of a nadaswaram (double reed) and complex rhythms of kanjira and thavil drums.

There are various singers, notably Susha. Her playful vocals feature in the dance-song ‘Geeta Duniki’. A piece like this should be airborne, but the electronics tether it, similarly in ‘Pahi Jagajjanani’, which feels leaden with its beats. Disappointing after the revelation of Maghreb United.