Yemen Blues has been played on NTS shows including We Are Not Alone, with Yoducha first played on 2 August 2019.

Tel Aviv, Israel

Band Members Ravid Kahalani (vocals, percussion, gimbri) Omer Avital (vocals, oud, bass) Avi Lebovich (trombone) Itamar Borochov (trumpet) Hadar Noiberg (flute) Rony Iwryn (percussion) Itamar Doari (percussion) Hilla Epstain (cello) Galia Hai (viola)

Shaped by his origins as a Yemeni Jew, the fascinating voice of Ravid Kahalani brilliantly evokes the musical universe of his ancestors. Stretching like a slow caravan crossing the desert, it winds through West African blues and the thousand and one vibrations of the Sahara, Nubian, Gnawi, Touaregs, Saidi and Bambara.

This luscious mix of jazz tonalities, which also crosses into funk, rings out as an ode to to African grooves and a modern echo of the ancestral rhythms. Ravid Kahalani creates a canvas printed both with deep emotions when his rasping laments tear open the heavens,but also with popular jubilation when the percussions, the oud, the cello and the brass instruments interweave in a harmonious dance that is complex and resolutely modern. A joyful oasis in the middle of the desert…