Various: Barcelona Raval Sessions

By GRAHAM REID

(Herald rating: * * *)



Any sprawling, cosmopolitan European city has its quarter where cultures collide. In Barcelona it is Raval, west of the central La Rambla, where there are wonderfully dark and friendly little bars, a bohemian feel and a musical meltdown of hip-hop, traditional Catalan music and North African styles.

So what you get - after exactly the right amount of vino tinto - are danceable beats, exotic and sinuous melodies, and a smattering of electronica topped off by passionate - if largely unintelligible - lyrics. It can make you woozy with delight.

This exciting if admittedly demanding collection (two discs is a lot of indecipherable words) makes no concessions to ears unfamiliar with the bubbling crucible of music and life which is Raval: the sleeve notes are in Spanish, and artists such as El Noi (bustling, horn-slapped gypsy dance), Boss Phobie and Wesak are hardly household names.

But English still filters through - Clotaire K's plea for peace but a "don't push me" message on Lubnan, with a soundbite from Anwar Sadat; Naggo Morris' reggae Flour Power.

And there are a few artists who have made small inroads outside their own cultures - Algerian rai singer Khaled (here with the dramatic, accordion-driven Minuit) and Ojos de Brujo and Kurdistani (here with Baghdad Rai inna reggae style) may be familiar to diligent world music followers.

But the music not the lyrics can carry and keep the attention, from the bent pop of Polvorosa, primitive techno from Xerramequ, and the dub of English-language Zuell to the scratchy avant-breakdown of La Kemia's Aie.

There are hints of Mali, what could be Tex-Mex which went walkabout back to the old country, fiery guitar work (Wesak's hyperactive Canco Parisa) and even a slice of Jewish klezmer.

If you happily listened to France's MC Solaar because you got the beats and the mood then you'll have no trouble here. Either way, it's a journey around a world which is a suburb in a very big city, but one where cultures rub up against each other and something raw and unique - hardcore electronica with the traditional santur somehow seems so right - has emerged.

The back cover shows a Muslim woman in a head scarf while behind her a skateboard kid in a baseball cap goes through his manoeuvres. That about sums it up.

Label: Rhythmethod