Cheb Khaled: Hada Raykoum

This is the kind of thing that happens too often in any music collection once it gets big and old: a record I remember enjoying greatly when I got it, but I'm certain I haven't listened to it for at least two decades. It's so long since I last registered it that I'd never go searching for it in my collection — unless I heard that Khaled had died or something terrible like that (thankfully he hasn't) — and its spine is too unassuming to leap out and suggest itself to me on an idle browse along my vinyl shelf. As with Neu! 2 back in Week 1, I'm grateful for being prompted to take it off that shelf. Were it not for the discipline of my Music Arcades exercise, I might have gone to my grave without hearing it again.

Which would have been my loss, because it still sounds great. Very much of its time, but no worse for that because the combinations still work: the accordion and the eighties analogue synths; the crude drum machine (think Colossal Youth or In the Air Tonight) with the hand drums; and the voice that sometimes does that sufi wail that you get in qawwali music, and other times evokes the angry celtic phrasing of Datblygu.

"Le No.1 du Raï," it says on a cover that expects to sell to the Algerian diaspora in francophone countries, and isn't yet aimed at the 'crossover' world music market. It was releasd by in the UK by Triple Earth Records, but evidently they had no budget either to design another cover or to master and press the record very well (I think this was one of their earliest releases). I guess I heard it on Andy Kershaw's Radio 1 programme. Never mind the No.1 of Raï, this was the only one of Raï at the time. And still the only Raï album in my collection, which may be an oversight, but do I really need more shelfware?

MusicBrainz entry for this album Wikipedia entry for this album Rate Your Music entry for this album Listen to none of this album at Last.fm

Comments

[Medwyn Jones]

Does this album have La Camel on it? A song I miss very much as I don't think I have it anywhere any more :-(

[David]

Hi Medwyn,

No, it doesn't. You can always click on the Musicbrainz link for a full tracklisting of anything on Music Arcades. Musicbrainz tells me La Camel is on Hafla (http://musicbrainz.org/release/a0b14946-4259-4b8b-89ff-e30d5250af09.html) and a few compilations.

Cheers, David

[David]

p.s. the track is readily available on iTunes, eMusic and Amazon (direct link).

[ThisGuy]

Hafla is a live album. La Camel is on the album Kutché.

[David]

Thanks!