Original 7" For Sale, contact me for more details. THANX

Libyan disco pop anno 1983. Taken from the album "Mots D'Amor"

Visit my blog, Jo/No's Audio Delights for more info as well as agreat modern remix of this tune made by Prince Language:

http://jonosaudio.blogspot.com/2009/10/libyan-disco.html 

Ahmed Fakroun - Soleil Soleil (1983)

Ahmed Fakroun
Mots D'Amour
The Arab world back in the 70s and 80s gave us quite a few very interesting rock and pop acts. Ahmed Fakroun from Libya was THE one of them.
Here we have his 1983 album whose title means "Love Words" in English. And in fact his kind of ethno pop seems to go deeper than just to the charts where a song like "Soleil! Soleil!" - a typical yet outstanding synthie pop / new wave anthem that would have gone well with David Bowie or Duran Duran in the early 80s - definitely would have belonged. Other tunes are more Oriental with great string arrangements and those mystical melodies only Arab and Oriental music provides. It goes forth and back with these elements. "Mots d'amour" is a rather colorful affair, when it comes to 80s pop music and within the fine arrangements you will find a lot of solid handcraft from the instrumental section. Whoever worked with Ahmed Fakroun in the studio during the album production shall be praised and blessed for his talent as well. All in all this is one of the lost gems of 80s pop music which fetches prices up to 500,00 Euros for a nearly mint copy today. So fans of cool 80s pop with a memorable edge are now able to grab a copy of this forgotten jewel. Compared to many European releases from that year, "Mots d'Amour" can easily match up with all of them and has several outstanding evergreens on board. The sound is perfect for the time as well. So grab a copy of the reissue and make your dance party go crazy with this fascinating guy from Libya. Watch out for more fantastic releases of Ahmed Fakroun, published and distributed by PMG! 

Ahmed Fakroun - Soleil Soleil

Pre-order: https://habibifunkrecords.bandcamp.com/album/alech-2

When we first decided to start Habibi Funk, a label dedicated to re-releasing „funky" Arabic music from the 1960s to 1980s, a band called Dalton was the first release we worked on. Dalton was a band from the Tunisian capital of Tunis and they played a unique mix of soul & funk with an Arabic DNA. We licensed the release from the band’s composer Fawzi Chekili, and when we spoke to him on the phone in preparation of the release he mentioned another band he was part of, called Carthago. Our work with Habibi Funk is like a big treasure hunt. There are too many great bands that fully vanished into obscurity and didn’t leave any traces in the digital sphere yet. We are so used to the internet providing all informations we might be looking for, but Carthago was one of those bands where the internet largely failed to provide any infos despite the fact that Carthago created some incredible music in the form of an highly infectious Tunisian take on disco music. Luckily most of the members of the 1970s musical scene of Tunis are still around to tell their story. 


Carthago was founded in the late 1970s as a fusion of Dalton and a second band called Marhaba Band. Both bands frequently played at hotels and night clubs in Tunis and Sousse. They had similar musical influences and despite the fact that they were competition for the most part, they came up with the idea to join forces for a new band. Musically Carthago kept on walking on the musical path of Dalton and Marhaba but incorporated disco music, a new style that was making its way to North Africa from Europe and North America. The band had quite some success on local radio and played a number of big shows with thousands of people showing up. The band’s concerts were a mixture of their own compositions as well as cover versions of the hits of the time from Stevie Wonder to Chicago. At the end of the 70s they went to Paris to record their only, self titled album. For our reissue we picked out two of our favorite tracks: „Hanen“ and the outstanding disco version of the Dalton track „Alech“ which has proved to work on every dance floor we played over the last two years. 


When I came to Tunis for the first time after the Dalton reissue I met Fawzi in person. He still lives in Tunis and still works as a full time musician though his focus has shifted more towards Jazz over the years. Luckily he did not only keep a spotless copy of the Carthago album but he also kept the master tape of the instrumental versions of the album which to this day were unreleased. Being able to add exclusive content to a reissue is something that is rare and we feel highly privileged to be able to do so. Futher more we are so happy that we will be able to add something new to the bands legacy not only musically but also visually: One day I realized that most of the releases from Tunisia I liked, be it from Dalton, Carthago or Marhaba Band had the same photographer credit. 


Hassen Turki started taking photos at a young age and when he was 18 he started going to the gigs of the bands of the time that were playing in the Marhaba Hotel which was managed by his father at the time. He became friends with the bands and ended up being the person to be asked when it came to shooting the photos for the covers of the records. After some research I managed to get in touch with Hassen and met him in his hometown Sousse. Luckily he kept most of the negatives of the photos he took so we’re more than happy to be able to share these unseen photos with whoever is interested. 


Our gratitude goes to all the members of Carthago, Marhaba Band and Dalton: Fawzi Chekili, Hedi Ben Ali (Dede), Ridha Kouhen, Ferid Ben Cheikh, Skander Almi, Hechmi Miliani, Mustapha Rehouma, Kamel Sellam, Claude Chiarello, Taoufik Sellam (Fouka), Sadok Gharbi, Fernando Marino (Nando), Jamel Bel Haj Khelifa and to Hassen Turki for allowing us to use his photos.

Habibi Funk 004: Carthago - Alech (Pre-order link in description)

pre-order: https://habibifunkrecords.bandcamp.com/album/habibi-funk-007-modern-music

Al Massrieen was one of the first bands I learned about once I discovered the tape format. They were really popular in Egypt in the 1970s and the more of their music I found on either tapes or Arabic pirate mp3 sites, the more I was becoming a fan. Only very few bands from the region can match the band’s versatility as well as their strive for innovation. Hany Shenoda is the man behind the Al Massrieen band. He is a reknown figure of the Egyptian music scene and has worked with everyone from Abdel Halim Hafez to Mohamed Mounir. Al Massrieen was his attempt to introduce his ideas of modernizing Egyptian music, heavily encouraged by Naguib Mahfouz (Egypt's only winner of the Nobel Price for literature) after discussing his ideas with him.

Al Massrieen - Sah (pre-order now)

From cassette SYNTHE SUTIO SSP1002 (Ermont, 95,  France)

Faraji - Soura

pre-order: https://habibifunkrecords.bandcamp.com/album/habibi-funk-007-an-eclectic-selection-of-music-from-the-arab-world

"The first time I talked to Mohamed, he told me about how he left his hometown in Algeria to go to France. Shortly after he started telling me about how he met a zouk band in Paris that pushed him to open up to a different culture and mix different styles of music. Mohamed Malek was born near Oran in Algeria but left in his twenties. For Mo- hamed the huge dynamism and multiculturalism around the Parisian cultural scene did certainly play a major role in his own perception of music and expanded his influences. Since he started creating his own music, Mohamed knew that he wanted to break boundaries in order to freely express himself. He wrote and recorded many tracks among which some were shown to the world and others were kept secret. He also performed in Paris for many years, in bars or in public spaces even though music wasn’t his main source of income.
Hearing all those stories made me realize something about his art. In fact Mohamed‘s music is like a crossroad between the gloom of a sad ending and the sparkle of a new beginning‚ „Rouhi Ya Hafida“ is a song about the loss of love but the mingle between the disco beat and the Arab lyrics manage to take the song to a very powerful level. Most of Mohamed‘s work, including „Rouhi Ya Hafida“ is highly poetic. He also recorded many other songs in different styles going from acoustic to zouk or mysterious Arab experimental electronic styles in both French and Arabic. Mohamed never told us about those pieces but Jannis did find some very special tapes between the ones he keeps in his tiny but well-stocked music room. A space where he hides all of his work and for sure some of his dearest memories. Today despite his age Mohamed‘s hunger for music still pushes him to play and write songs. We are also working on releasing the afore-mentioned electronic tapes from Mallek Mohamed in the near future."
written by KhedijaDhaoui

IG: habibibfunk
FB: facebook.com/habibifunk

Pre Order

Mallek Mohamed - Rouhi Ya Hafida (Habibi Funk: An ecclectic selection of music from the Arab world)

A1 Shams Dinn - Hedi Bled Noum

On croyait le grand raï mort avec le ­déclin de Khaled, Cheb Mami et con­sorts, dans le meilleur des cas réduit à quelques performances vocodées dans les boîtes à chicha des périphéries urbaines. Et voilà qu’il renaît par la voix rauque et enfumée d’un quadragénaire parisien originaire de Sidi Bel Abbès, en Algérie. Trois ans après El Mordjane, disque déjà prometteur, Sofiane Saidi est de retour, accompagné cette fois par Mazalda, un groupe de musiciens lyonnais avec lequel il a déjà électrisé les scènes françaises. En studio, guitares rock et synthés analogiques aux tournures mélismatiques invitent à tournoyer sous les étoiles (el ndjoum en arabe), sur un groove vintage mouillé d’une réverbe intimiste et chaleureuse, qui rappelle moins le raï des années 1990 que celui de la décennie précédente. Car, au-delà de la fête, plus cosmique que stroboscopique, Sofiane Saidi renoue surtout avec l’âpreté des origines, mélangeant batterie et derboukas, flûte électronique et flûte de roseau traditionnelle. Adaptées de vieux morceaux raï, ses chansons suintent le blues, celui que les bergers noyaient autrefois dans la bouteille sous les oliviers. La reprise du Saïda de Cheikha Rimitti qui clôture le disque — un chant de l’exil lancinant — donne des frissons.

| Airfon/Carton Records/L’Autre distribution.

Anne Berthod

Ahmed Fakroun - Soleil Soleil (1983)

Jonos Audio

Recent comments

COBEIA

LjP

Related tracks