rocker Sidi Bémol returns with an explosive album

FranceInfo Culture: You are back with a new album, Elho sings L’Attirail, Fat Man’s Bar Songs, totally different from the previous ones, in particular from Chouf!resolutely rock… What is your approach for this one?

Hocine Boukella: This album is a kind of journey into an unknown country. For around ten years, I have been collaborating with Xavier Demerliac, leader of the group L’Attirail, by writing texts for his music and singing them in his albums. For example, we wrote Water and Fire, a title in homage to JJ Cale. In these collaborations, I only took care of the text and the vocals. On the other hand, in Fat Man’s Bar Songs, I interpret the music of L’Attirail in my own way, I play it with my arrangements. In summary, I sing the music of L’Attirail in the Sidi Bémol way.

Your world is a bit surreal…
The music of L’Attirail has no borders, it is music that invites you to travel and discover. For my album, I chose ten of this music and I wrote ten texts in different languages ​​that I master more or less: Arabic, Kabyle, French, English, Romanian and Kazakh. These songs tell strange stories, enigmatic characters, unexplored countries. In BlowsI use the soundtrack of a 1957 western, in Moon QueenI imagine the Queen of the Moon who contemplates, smiling, the humans who are running to their doom and in I’m Coming, I describe a secret trip to my native village in Kabylia, I also give the recipe for learning to swim in the middle of the desert… These songs remind me of the atmosphere of a Parisian bar that I once frequented, in which we could hear lots of of incredible stories, told in every possible language by unforgettable drunks. It’s this bar, now gone, that inspired the title. Fat Man’s Bar Songs.

How to define your music? Is gourbi-rock, a mix of Led Zeppelin and Cheikh Hamada, suitable?

Gourbi-rock sums up the music of the group Sidi Bémol well. It’s an open definition and I’m fine with it. Cheikh Hamada (Algerian artist who died in 1968, editor’s note) is an immense artist of melhoun, the musical genre that gave rise to raï. When I was a teenager, I listened to a lot of English rock, Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles. When I discovered Cheikh Hamada, I immediately tried playing him on rock guitar and it opened a door to an unexplored musical universe. This made me decide to look for a new way of playing Algerian music, and pushed me to compose and write; it was Cheikh Hamada who led me towards gourbi-rock.

You are celebrating the 20th anniversary of your label at the end of January at the Studio de l’Ermitage. Looking back, how do you view your career?

The CSB label Productions was created to make music independently and without regard to trends. It’s an artisanal enterprise that brings together musicians who are not so motivated by the criteria of show business or by the methods of the music industry. The label has existed for 20 years, it is already a great victory, because it is really not easy to last in the cultural professions. Today, the label brings together around twenty artists, Algerian, Malian, Portuguese, French, and we hope to welcome even more new talents. We had many unforgettable moments with the public in many different countries. We also received a lot of love and charged a lot of energy. We also have some bad memories that have served us as lessons and which over time become subjects for jokes.

You will sing on stage the titles selected by your fans, but what is your favorite song?

Difficult to choose a single title in a repertoire which now includes more than 120. I don’t have a favorite song, but El Bandi is the one who continues to make my work known. I always have a lot of fun singing it with the audience. It’s been a long time since I sang Blues Bouzenzel, The Diali Fault, Hiya and other titles from my first albums, it’s good to find them again.

Sidi Bémol in concert from January 24 to 26 at Studio de l’Ermitage, 8 rue de l’Ermitage, 75020 Paris.