Rachid Taha with Brian Eno

DK Gorbunova, May 25

"For me, music is rock'n'roll. Colored by what's inside me and what's outside me", said French-Algerian rocker Rachid Taha at a news conference in a documentary about his 2004 Mexican tour. "That's to say I'm European, Arab, Muslim".

This approach is most perfectly epitomized in "Rock El Casbah", Taha's muscular Arabic interpretation of THE CLASH classic "Rock The Casbah", on his sixth and most recent solo studio album, "Tékitoi?" British musician and record producer Brian Eno, who collaborated on the album and who is to make his live debut as a member of Taha's band in the singer's brief Russian tour, was attracted by his blend of Arabic musical tradition and Western rock as well as his angry, political stance.

"Rachid's music is sort of intrinsically political and topical and very much the music you imagine of the Arab street", said Eno in an interview for the BBC's South Bank Show earlier this year. "I think he himself is a person who feels his role is to make a cultural and political statement, he doesn't separate those two things".

The Oran, Algeria-born Taha, who was taken by his parents to France as a 10-year-old boy, has absorbed Western rock tradition while keeping his Arabic roots. This makes him the perfect collaborator for Eno, who has liked Northern African pop and used the ideas and patterns of Arabic tradition in his own music for a long time. However, Eno has never really worked with Arabic players, as they were normally not open to Western pop rhythms, securely rooted in their own tradition. "There was no easy way to make a bridge with them, whereas Rachid was already half the way on the bridge, so it was evident that it would work", said Eno.

In Moscow, Taha’s band is to also be joined by prog-rock guitarist Steve Hillage of the GONG fame, who produced, co-wrote and played on "Tékitoi?"

Sergey Chernov
"GO! Magazine", Issue 18, May 19 - June 2, 2005

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I saw Eno and Taha perform last night (25 May) and thought you might be interested to hear an account of the gig.

They played in DK Gorbunova, a crumbling Stalinist Palace of Culture which is a popular venue for black metal and industrial bands. It's also located very close to Moscow's main pirate CD market. Did Eno realise his just-about-complete works were available on two MP3 discs for about £4.50 nearby?

The show started off with Eno producing weird stuttering percussion noises by waving his hands in the air over a long box with lots of wires coming out of it. He did this for a few minutes, then Rachid Taha shambled on in gold pyjamas and shades. Eno introduced him in Russian; not very hard - "Eto Rachid Taha" and the band launched into their fusion of raï and rock. Every now and then Eno would press a key and a strange noise would emerge. Most of the time, however, he was just singing backing vocals, but enjoying himself enormously as he was visibly "getting down".

Rachid Taha's producer and guitarist Steve Hillage was also in the band, and periodically his guitar was fed into Eno's bank of keyboards for "treatments", cue weird stuttering/squealing effects. The bass and the cymbals also received this treatment and it was fascinating to watch and listen, as suddenly the music transcended Raï and became something I'd literally never heard before.

Eno's other activities involved drying his baldness with a towel (there was a heatwave in Moscow and no air conditioning in the ancient venue) and crowd banter. Can't say too much for his Russian grammar, but at least he tried. The only time I've seen a western rock act with better Russian was a DURAN DURAN concert on TV, but Simon Le Bon cheated: he was reading his words off a piece of paper.

Most of the crowd was in their 30s/40s, and had no idea who Rachid Taha was. The promotion for the concert gave Eno equal billing, and all the articles in the "Time Out" style mags over here focussed on Eno. However they still got into it. Taha pulled people up on stage to dance, so at one time there was about 20 folk up there, slim girls, fat girls, nerdy geeks and an enormous jumping bearded man that Taha really got into. He put his arms around him and started jumping up and down himself. Eno was also getting down relatively furiously at this point, albeit behind the keyboards and in a dignified manner, pausing for frequent headtowelling.

All in all a good gig. It's striking how fit and healthy Eno is for a man of his age. Steve Hillage on the other hand, looked old and faintly embarrassed to be on stage. But there y'go.

Daniel Kalder
"EnoWebNews", May 26, 2005