Cheikh Efrita

Cheikh Efrita reinvents a century-old Tunisian musical repertoire, projecting it into the present through a stylistic palette ranging from breakbeat to footwork, IDM to hyperpop, and post-club. His debut album, released on the French label Monograph, draws from archival Tunisian music from the 1920s-1950s and pays tribute to seven artists, most of them famous singers: Cheikh El Afrit, Habiba Msika, his aunt Leila Sfez, Saliha, Louisa Tounsia, Fritna Darmon, and the Bnat Chemama ensemble. Thus reinterpreted, these pieces offer a surprising diversity of rhythm and harmony. New motifs and tensions emerge from the sound properties inherent in the glitchy quality of the archives, in a spirit of vibrant, sensitive musical experimentation.