Raised on the psychedelics of the sixties and the heavy metal of the seventies, Mehdi Haddab is an oud hero just like the “guitar heroes” we used to speak of. Having travelled all over the world, he chose Dakar and its major local and regional figures 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 mbalax, African grooves, the Orient, urban rock and funk. 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…