Back to Morocco…
[Video][Website]
[7.00]
Patrick St. Michel: I’m not going to pretend to know much about Moroccan Chaabi music (this video of French Montana throwing bills around to it being a highlight), but “LM3ALLEM” sounds like the style absorbing EDM/trap ideas, and not the other way around. It isn’t about authenticity, but about how much more interesting this sounds as it lurches forward, how Lamjarred’s voice goes cyborg at various points and the song zips off in all sorts of directions. It’s fun how unpredictable this is, compared to other producers out their basically reduce sounds like this to an “exotic” sticker to slap on their dippy festival bait.
[8]
Katherine St Asaph: I’m sure purists somewhere mind, but those trappish interludes are not only some of the most exhilarating seconds of music you’ll hear this year, they fold seamlessly into the call and response. Though I could listen to the rest on loop without it.
[8]
Iain Mew: A direct route to a great time, Lamjarred rides its flexible groove straight through a bunch of banging electro set pieces with suave confidence. Also, I want the half-polka-dot-half-check jacket that is the pick of a bunch of strong looks in the video.
[8]
Anthony Easton: Classically educated, his father a renowned Chaabi singer: the power has not skipped a generation. The interesting thing about Chaabi is how it combines traditional vocals with a taste for the novel. It continually renews within its historical context. Though this is not Chaabi — it moves too close to a kind of pan-Euro disco/house — it does not completely forget its Arabic roots, which suggests a kind of doubling-down of memory and cultural identity.
[8]
Micha Cavaseno: The first thing anyone should notice is the jarring sensation of this heavy-handed “trap”-style production, stuttered and jarred into epilepsy by such an oddly plodding tempo. For the most part it sounds like the producer can’t tell the difference between the beat and the drop when he listens to the EDM records he’s trying to make a hit based on, but I don’t know, maybe Morocco is really feeling this sort of pulse. This is one of those discomforts that’s going to linger in my bones, but the song just can’t find solid ground in my ears.
[3]
Ramzi Awn: Radio-ready with a kick to boot, “LM3ALLEM”‘s broken beat is almost a nod to Emerson, Lake, and Palmer or Ciara’s “Sweat.” There’s something sincere about Lamjarred’s voice.
[6]
Brad Shoup: The way you end a song isn’t vital, but Lamjarred’s triumphant “mallem” before jumping down a wall is a nice close. Everything else is an entreating trudge, EDM kept live even at half the speed and a step thrown in every bar.
[8]