Aisha Kandisha's Jarring Effects – Shabeesation

To my ears the first album was an interesting, but often confused/confusing blend of modern dance music trickery & traditional music which seemed at times too often a chimera. Here they have found the elements they were searching for & have forged themselves new golden fighting spirit, a monster both handsome & awe-inspiring. To assist with attaining this sound, they have been joined by BILL LASWELL who plays bass on five of the nine tracks and contributes loops on three. "AMuey A Muey", after an initial scurry of found street musicianship, settles into a pumping, driving Reggae thing built on LASWELL's bass over which a variety of different instruments are played with a very definite Eastern flavour - a strange hybrid which this reviewer's pulsing body wouldn't allow his brain to contemplate for too long. "Dunya" again combines several 'found' Eastern sounds before settling into a slowly pulsating dance track which fails to fall into any obvious Western style, yet it's clearly a hybrid. "Fin Roh" splinters off again using their enjoyable blend of traditional Moroccan music cut into the thumping beat of a sort of light Techno/Funk hybrid, the song itself full of steely-strong hook, both physically driving & listenable. Switchback FX & religious outbursts add to it's addictive powers. "Nbrik" is a simple Reggae rhythm over which a thin, more echoing sound, with organ & violin most prominent, combines with the busy vocalists. I can only guess what they are singing about (the opening mentions something about Racism). "Nbrik Dub" seems to speak for itself, but is somehow a deeper, more driving rhythm which almost takes the breath away by it's sheer force. Lots of dubby FX make this actually more enjoyable than the original. "Lahbah" captures the tense, atmospheric feel of an African night with flute flying in & out of the other shimmering instruments & the shaking voice before setting into a medium-paced thing with busy violin providing much of the tune & simple bass pulsating in body-gyrating rhythm. It is a complicated enough piece, despite it's face-value simplicity. "Nenzak" builds upon a fast electronic bassline, with thumping bass drum & acoustic guitars surging it along. Another catchy song, which, even if you cannot speak the language (and I imagine for most of us, this is the case) you can still enjoy it & even sing along (in the way you might sing along with LIZ FRAZER - or is that just me). "Zin" follows very much in the format of earlier AKJE tracks - a simple 4/4ish structure with an underlying electronic elements over which traditional instruments are played & various noises echo off into the dry warm night. "El Harb" is a slow, dark thing built on a 'wet' electronic foundation over which a variety of instruments clash more in effect than musical structure. This is the darkest thing on the album, the closest track to Industrial music with SPRUNG AUS DEN WOLKEN, a viscid portrayal of a native jungle scene by someone who has only read of such things in books. I much prefer this to the first album - its full of catchy tunes yet countered by a complexity of instrumentation which hides certain elements away for you to discover every time you play it.