French synth-punk band CHEVEU and GROUP DOUEH from Western Sahara spent two weeks together in the city of Dakhla in 2016, and they wrote and recorded an album together.

Western-Sahara is the home of Sahrawi people. They are speaking a variant of Maghrebi Arabic, and have Berber, Bedouin and Black African ethnic backgrounds.

Their basic instruments are percussions and traditional stringed instruments which ones often replaced by electric guitar nowadays. The region was under Spanish rule until 1975, then Morocco and Mauritania divided up, but there is a movement of independence, called Polisario, which established his state in the inner Western Sahara.

On the one hand – The leader of Group Doueh was born in Dakhla in 1966, at that time it was a village. Of course he made his first guitar himself with metal can and fishing wire – as the legend says. His heroes are Jimi Hendrix, James Brown and Mark Knopfler, and also influenced by Moroccan chaabi and psychedelic music, e.g. Nass El Ghiwane, which was established as an avant-garde political theatre in 1971.

„When I take the instrument, I leave elsewhere. I am absent. Music is my life. I inherited from my father who played percussion from house to house. I can approach any kind of styles, but I track down traditional music, the source.”

On the other hand – French trio Cheveu is not really punk in fact, rather outsider, in out of control zone, somewhere between the crazy psychedelic rock of the 60s and the no wave, industrial and electronic music of the late 70s.

At first files were exchanged, then Cheveu went to Dakhla to play, write and record songs together for two weeks. It was hard to bring together these distant universes.

The music of Doueh is often very ornamented improvisation. „The trigger thing was to fix one of their themes in punk rock mode. It freed us. They made a lot of improvisations, variations, and whenever you thought you had picked up, they left elsewhere…” „At this stage we played a few selected pieces of our repertoire to show what we are going to see (…) in response they suddenly started „Acid Waltz”, a theme brought by us, but they little by little made twists on it.

And finally there was a common live show at a venue. „At first Group Doueh goes to the stage, later Cheveu joins them. And everyone begins to find his place in a repertoire that they have refined for ten days. David takes the microphone. Some women dance. There is even a Parisian who made the trip after he saw the announcement of the event on Facebook. All of a sudden, Hicham turns to me: „Alan Vega in the sand! ”

OUT NOW ON BORN BAD RECORDS (FR)

Trouble Vs Glue is an Italian duo from Rome where usually Toni plays on drums, and Lady Maru trifles with keys and sometimes strings.

They said „sound like the Residents with a punk drummer, in others like a weird Japanese electronic pop band from the ’80s, while some other tracks bring us back to the no-wave of Lizzy Mercier Descloux and DNA.” I tell: Trouble Vs Glue is such as the electro-clash duo Stereo Total in experimental mood.

A song from the third album featuring David Lemoine from French electro punk band Cheveu

This Age will be released this June on No=Fi Recordings (I)

You can find a pretty different musical background behind the members. Toni has a noise rock band Hiroshima Rocks Around, and his solo project Mai Mai Mai is an experiment based on Italian Occult Psychedelia, which is rooted in Italian horror movies, giallo films, spaghetti westerns and local folklore. His debut album was mixed by Jamie Stewart, aka Xiu Xiu.

Lady Maru is a techno and deep house musician and DJ. Very interesting her collaborative no wave nu disco project with Cascao (who also is a contributor on the new album of T Vs G). They have a deep house cover of Death Valley 69, a masterpiece of Sonic Youth and Lydia Lunch. Find it!

Französisch Neue Deutsche Welle. With mediewal, afro and oriental rhythms. So sehr putzig! Well, it’s funny enough.

Heimat consists of Olivier from Cheveu and Armellie from The Dreams. Debut LP by Teenage Menopause Records (Europe) and Kill Shaman (US).

Cover art by Alexander „the Great” Lobanov, a deaf and mute and lunatic artist. He was a prototype of the Soviet human.

The English Burning Alms duo plays noise rock. I think Fugazi, Helmet, Sonic Youth and black metal; others mentioned e.g. Glenn Branca and Swans as influence.

debut album „In Sequence” on Smalltown America Records (Northern-Ireland, UK)

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Elzo Durt is Belgian graphic artist who made many cover arts for such bands as Thee Oh Sees, Magnetix, Jack of Heart, PyPy and many more. On the occasion of his Parisian exhibition, Born Bad Records have released a single with really various artists: Cheveu, Pierre & Bastien and Violence Conjugale

Elzo is co-founder of Teenage Menopause Records

„We work like dogs drinking sparkling water”

CHEVEU is more and more absurd and entertaining eclectic electronic punk rock band, like Devo, but in France

Johnny Hurry Up!

from the album BUM on Born Bad Records (France)

Cheveu

more and more absurd and entertaining eclectic punk rock like Devo. Stadium

from the album Bum by Born Bad

More and more absurd and entertaining eclectic punk rock like the Devo

Cheveu – Bum LP by Born Bad Records

Ahhhhhhhhhhhitsfuckingooood!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! –  I did this statement during the 4th song. Maybe the best album this year till now.

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More and more mainstream rock like The Clash

The Men – Tomorrow Hits LP by Sacred Bones

Euro tour in March Vienna March 22 Flex