El Hal / The Feeling
Electric Jalaba
Strut Records
Over five years since their last record, London-based gnawa and electronic music specialists, Electric Jalaba return with their most impressive work to date. The six-piece band, renowned for their deeply intuitive musical connection to one another are once again in magical form, their spiralling grooves, intoxicating rhythms, trance-inducing vocals and shimmering synths working together in almost telepathic union throughout. It is this sense of being so intertwined in each others’ playing that gives the album its name and its joyous, natural feel aesthetic. Merging traditional music with the modern, the bass is cranked up and the deep, wonky synth lines take us to a place at once unfamiliar and totally at ease. The record has a funky, groovy atmosphere that verges on psychedelic. Some of the intricate grooves are wound up so tight they break and fling in all directions. The bass is deep and low-slung, interplaying perfectly with the hypnotic vocals to take us across deserts to places unknown. A wonderfully visceral record that pushes our expectations, this is the amazing Electric Jalaba at their very best.