Houeida Hedfi: Fleuves De l'Ame (Phantasy/digital outlets)

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Houeida Hedfi: Fleuves De l'Ame (Phantasy/digital outlets)

For further evidence that some of the most interesting music comes when genres or cultures collide you need only look at Elsewhere's list of the best albums of 2021.

The albums by Tararua, Arushi Jain, Mdou Moctar, Circuit Des Yeux, Jane Weaver, Namgar, Arooj Aftab, Joy Harjo and others were confirmation.

And the list our readers provided includes further examples.

Which is by way of introducing this new name, Houeida Hedfi, a Paris-based Tunisian woman (piano, tuned percussion, vocals) and her ensemble on an album co-produced with Sweden's Olof Dreijer (of The Knife) at his studio in Berlin.

It includes musicians from Palestine, France and various parts of the Arab world . . . and just as many diverse instruments.

The eight exotically meditative and sometimes trance-touched pieces refer to various great rivers of the world (Nile, Ganges, Mekong, Danube, Euphrates etc) and evoke something of the spirit of their location and socio-cultural importance.

Sometimes these are stately, poised pieces and at other times shift into something approaching the music of a souk or sophisticated nightclub.

Appel du Danube (Call of the Danube) has a quiet romanticism in its opening passages but soon enough a more noir quality emerges through arco bass, string-like synths and yearning vocals. It's as if night has fallen, the lovers have gone home and the spirit of the river has grown despondent.

Echos de Medjerda (named for the river in Tunisia) is a much more disconcerting piece right from the off with angular percussion and what might be a sonically processed wind instrument version of Frippertronics.

In olden times when there were record stores with defined categories this would certainly be under World Music . . . but today it could equally it could fit into Contemporary Classical, instrumental folk or avant-garde.

We have just placed it under "Music at Elsewhere".

Wherever it's placed it's at that rewarding intersection of genres and cultures. And for a debut album by Hedfi – now in her Thirties and an economist by training – it is very impressive indeed.

Highly recommended.

.

You can hear and buy this album at bandcamp here.



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