Souad Massi

Sequana is the tenth album by Franco-Algerian singer-songwriter Souad Massi. If her music was previously coloured with folk and chaabi, the sound palette broadens here as far as the Sahel, the Caribbean and Brazil, with Justin Adams (Rachid Taha, Tinariwen, Robert Plant) on production. Souad Massi continues on her path as a committed, liberated woman singing about the causes close to her heart. Sequana is a collection of ten songs, nine of which were written by her, with the intention of capturing the passage of time and that which we must strive to preserve and pass on. The album draws on a diversity of musical styles – folk, country, rock, calypso, bossa, along with sounds of the Middle East and the Algerian desert.

Souad Massi is that rarest of Algerian performers – she doesn't sing rai music. But more than that, she's an accomplished singer/songwriter, a kind of North African Tracy Chapman, although she works in the Maghrebi genre of sha'bi as much as she does in folk music or soft rock. Electric guitars and touches of flamenco, oud, and the Arabic bass gimbri all help bring a real distinctiveness to her sound, which certainly has more in common with many American '60s protest singers than her contemporaries in Africa (indeed, to some she's Joan Baez reborn). Coke's production (he has worked with Ben Harper) is very sympathetic, bringing a live feel to the record ("Matebkiche" is, in fact, completely live). "Bladi" is a perfectly catchy song, its oud line deftly leading into Massi's smoky voice, and "Nekreh El Kelb" has a vital urgency.

Ya Nass is the debut solo album by the Lebanese singer Yasmine Hamdan, previously a member of the band Soap Kills and one half of the duo Y.A.S.. The album was originally given a limited release, in France and Lebanon, on the French Kwaidan label in 2012, under the title Yasmine Hamdan. It was released internationally by Crammed Discs in April 2013, under the title Ya Nass, featuring five new songs. It was produced by Marc Collin, best known for his new wave covers project Nouvelle Vague.

An unmistakable expressive voice. Spacious music based on fado. This is "Fado Camões", the new album by Portuguese singer and composer, LINA_ to be released worldwide on 19 January 2024 on the German label Galileo Music. “Fado Camoes” is a unique composition based on the classic poetry of Portugal’s most celebrated historical poet, Luís Vaz de Camões and follows on from the critically acclaimed album “Lina_Raül Refree” which celebrated the songs of Amália.