Espoir

Espior, the second album from Abdel Ali Slimani, former vocalist with Jah Wobble's Invaders of the Heart, finds him moving away from the dub-rai of his debut towards a north-African-meets-electro dance sound. Not that there aren't a few skanking bass lines lurking in here. In fact one of the best tracks ("El-Arabia") was produced by UK dub master Rootsman at his Bradford studio. Meanwhile others feature an interesting mix of digital rhythms (programmed by producer Veronica Ferraro) and a crack team of live musicians including Yazid Fentazi from Fantazia, Justin Adams and John Reynolds from Invaders of the Heart, and Abdullah Chhadeh. Slimani's on good vocal form throughout and he's well matched by the Paris-based Lebanese rapper Clotaire K on the opening "Moi et Toi", the young Algerian singer Selma on a couple of tunes and Natacha Atlas, who brings some spine-tingling vocal improvisations to the title track.