Super review by Cal Gibson, of The Secret Soul Society.

Aziza Brahim‘s fourth album for Glitterbeat is a beautifully wrought exploration of space and time and loss and longing. Desert blues, played wonderfully, echoes of sand, of journeys undertaken, of friends and family far from shore.

The wanderer’s tale then, reconfigured in ten pieces, telling of a world in flux, of lives shaped by war and suffering, of exile and return. People blown like the wind, lives in tatters, shapeless and incoherent. Art and music acting as a balm, a comfort, a bulwark against all the madness.

Aziza’s exquisite voice swoops and soars on Marhabna 2.1, the hills and valleys of lived experience shining through each phrase, the hand percussion pushing along, pushing along. Guitars chime over the soundbed, there are many miles to go, many places to see, life to be lived whatever the cost. It is simply a gorgeous track, full of soul, full of heart: a future classic.

Thajliba kicks off with ululating vocals and a groove that’s colied, lithe, ready to strike. There’s desert guitar blues lead lines dancing through the funk as Aziza trades vocal licks with the backing singers: it’s laid back but insistent, warm and inviting, deep desert soul music designed  to break free of William Blake’s ‘mind-forg’d manacles’. The ethos is one of exploration, of movement, of life as unquenchable desire. Here we are, the musicians say: hear our song.

The title track (Wave in Hassaniya Arabic) is three minutes of pristine pop music, smooth, shiny, dropped like a prayer in the night. Aziza again stretching out vocally, elongating and explicating, the track moving up a gear for the last minute: the beats now percolating, a rush to the finish line, superbly executed.

We’re back in blues territory for Metal, Madera: a bouncing, flouncing bopper, full of funky riffs and sliding notes, the backbeat steady as she flows. Guitar and vocal entwined like a desert version of George Benson. The bass badass, all pomp and finery as the guitars wheel and turn and wheel and turn again. A slow, brooding banger.

It’s an enticing listen all told, a truly global response to the shit storms we keep brewing up for ourselves, rooted in the Western Sahara and relocated to Barcelona Aziza Brahim sings her heart out and all she asks in return is your time and attention. A spellbinding collection that deserves the highest of praise: it’s soul music, pure and simple.

Aziza Brahim’s Majawa is out now on Glitterbeat.