Speed Caravan - Big Blue Desert (2016)

Seven years on from the release of their debut album Kalashnik Love (on Real World), the genre-defying Arabic rock blasters are back with a second album, lead as ever by the flamboyant electric oud maestro Mehdi Haddab. Raised on the psychedelics of the sixties and the heavy metal of the seventies, Haddab is an oud hero akin to the guitar heroes of rock lore. Having travelled all over the world, he chose Dakar, Senegal, in which to make this new Speed Caravan album. All electric, the strings of his abrasive instrument are at the heart of a hallucinatory ceremony which marries the native mbalax percussive rhythms to the core trio's oud, guitar and electronics. Hindi Zahra and Pape Diouf contribute vocals to one track each. Along with a trace of kitsch and an appeal to the imagination, it all gives joyful energy and brilliant rhythm to a Big Blue Desert…