After their excellent performance in 2017, when they cast a completely new light on traditional music, according to Radio Študent, Glitterbeat Records proteges Ifriqiyya Électrique are returning to Šiška with a new member and a fresh second album. Prepare yourself for the innovative fusion of ancient cleansing rituals and an electric storm of contemporary sonics that will grab you and wake you up.
The second album by Ifriqiyya Électrique, who have taken the sounds of the Tunisian desert around the world, including festivals such as Roskilde and WOMEX, is called Laylet el Booree, which translates as “Night of the Madness”. It refers to the annual gathering of Banga ritualists, when the spirits take possession of the bodies. The album reflects this possession – it’s wild, frantic and never caresses the listener’s expectations, but through the overwhelming sensory experience, it provides spiritual healing.
The story of the band begins years ago, François R. Cambuzat, who has also worked with Lydia Lunch and Eugene S. Robinson (Oxbow), spent months wandering the Djerid desert in Tunisia, filming, recording, and working and composing with members of a community of former black slaves – a community whose members don’t battle their inner demons, but rather attempt to placate them for mutual benefit with cleansing Banga rituals of dance and music, possession and trance.
The musical shamans fused their rites, going back hundreds of years, with contemporary sounds, addressing their demons with electronics and guitars, and creating something truly unique – transcendental post-industrial music that echoes both traditional tribal chants and desert riffs, with a hint of Nine Inch Nails catharsis and even hip-hop elements. In the members’ own words, the need for forgetting oneself is the same all over the world, from Djerid to clubs on Ibiza or rock bars in Moscow – and in Šiška in May.
Tickets on sale online and at Eventim outlets.
Organisation: Kino Šiška.
