Acid Arab is a duet from Paris whose goal is to mix all kind of Eastern music (North Africa, Lebanon, Egypt, Turkey or Mumbai) with electronic sounds, from pioneering acid house to today’s powerful techno.

Guido Minisky and Hervé Carvalho (+ Sex Schön in the studio), both djs for many years and residents of infamous Parisian club Chez Moune, have fallen in love with this music after a trip to Tunisia with Dj Gilb’R. They’ve managed to convince a lot of producers to come along with them on this fantastic voyage and create a track for their ‘Acid Arab Collections‘, which are naturally released by Gilb’R’s label, Versatile Records.

On this first EP you will hear the French dance master I:Cube giving his own definition of an Arabic acid track. Inspired by some old guys talking in an Algerian café, he called it “Le bon vieux temps” (‘Good old days’).

The Syrian star Omar Souleyman has accepted to let Crackboy (from Tigersushi and I’m A Cliché) remix one of his famous hits ‘Shift Al Mani‘. It’s acid at its best, empowered by Souleyman’s vocals. Acid Arab organized a live session at Versatile studio with keyboardist / guitarist Turzi (Record Makers), keyboardist / bassist Judah Warsky (Pan European Recordings) and a very special guest : Adnan Mohamed, aged 60, who’s played traditional oud guitar all his life in Kurdistan and France. Dj Gilb’R, the brain behind the muscles, has mixed these sounds to create an epic cosmic symphony that the team called ‘Cosmique Arabe‘ by Boyz In The Oud. Lastly, Acid Arab themselves deliver their ‘Theme‘, a journey through beats and a Persian melody that has already got support from Gilles Peterson, Lovefingers, TLR, Skudge, Tim Sweeney and Radio Nova (Paris).

“We are fascinated by eastern music and its codes, such as complex rhythmic structures (binary and ternary superimposing upon each other), which drive dancers to trance just like acid house does. We’d like to take these codes and use analog techno devices (beatboxes, bassline machines) to create something new : an oriental acid music which combines the coldness of techno and the emotional and dramatic power of the East. Our knowledge of the dancefloor is now digested and we have spent night after night digging records and files to know more about arabic music.

We don’t want to be standardbearers of mixing whatever, we just want to be of our days. talking about mixing means there’s a split, a binary vision of an occidental vs oriental world – this is has-been. We don’t paste oriental sounds on occidental beats, we want to embody both cultures without pretending to reinvent oriental music or fooling ourselves by believing we’re inventing eastern dance music. We just want to be part of it, and contribute to this brilliant and enormous masterpiece that this music is, and has been for thousands of years.” Acid Arab aka Guido Minisky and Hervé Carvalho.
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