Rumba Argelina - Radio Tarifa

Rumba Argelina succeeds in representing 'its place at the meeting point between Iberia and Africa [...], maintaining the miraculous balance of a tight rope walker, tilting first one way and then another, without ever falling back into either country.", as reflected in tu blurb.
Radio Tarifa are thoroughly 'contemporary', but in this case the word doesn't signify turntables, expensive remixes and sequenced beats. Their music is conjured up in a recording studio by two multi-instrumentalists - Fain S Duenas and Vincent Molino - and singer/lyricist Benjamin Escoriza. Much of it is drawn from traditional Mediterranean sources, but the trio have forced these scraps of tunes, stories, rhythms and rhymes into an ingenious modern mould. They use no electronics, and hardly any electric instruments, apart from bass guitar and occasional electric guitar.
Rumba Argelina, Radio Tarifa's 1993 debut album, was the result of the trio's basement studio creativity. Charlie Gillett,the person who pioneered world music radio in Britain, compares its impact to that of the Band's Music From Big Pink - a wake-up call for a complacent music establishment.
The CD is a unique blend of sounds from Morocco, Spain, and the entire Mediterranean coast. It succeeds in creating a never-before-heard blend of ideas and sound, and is wonderfully adept at transporting the listener to another dimension of place.