When quintet Imarhan emerged onto the world stage with their first City Slang release ten years ago, they stood out for their keen melodic sensibilities within the international tishoumaren scene. Hailing from the southern Algerian oasis city of Tamanrasset, they offer a distinct iteration of what has been referred to as desert blues, in which they adorn the melancholy core of the genre with often intricate lines and flourishes that recall popular styles of the Arab Maghreb.
Their fourth album, Essam (“lightning”), takes their flair for the luscious even further, as producer Emile Papandreou (of the eccentric French electropop duo UTO) extends the group’s sound with ethereal modular synthesizers. As always, Imarhan proves to be exceptional at balancing…