Natacha Atlas Issue #28

Mish Maoul (Mantra)

By Marisa Torrieri
Published: June 1st, 2006 | 9:10am

Singer Natacha Atlas got her big break in the last decade, winning admirers worldwide with her exotic dance-diva presence and rich, sultry vocals that beautifully shift between French, Arabic, and English. Today, with every other woman enrolled in belly-dance class, she’s practically a household name, aided in no small part by the growing popularity of Indo-African and Middle-Eastern grooves once limited to clubs with names like Casablanca and Marrakech.

Mish Maoul merges shimmy-friendly dance beats and hip-hop with classical, Middle Eastern instrumentation and stretched-out, ethereal vocals. This time around, Atlas, also a dancer, relies less on the manufactured techno beats that dominated The Remix Album and more on homegrown staples of her Moroccan heritage.

Like Atlas’ best music, Mish Maoul isn’t committed to any particular style and benefits from the help of London production team Transglobal Underground, a musical collective known for fusing Atlas’ classical pipes with Western hip-hop, funk, Indian, and electronica.

The accordion-and-strings melody of “Feen,” for instance, is a simple, pretty Sahara Desert ditty, save Princess Julianna’s catchy rap breakdowns. The more sinister and tribal “Hayati Inta” layers various percussions — among them Oud, Gambri, Bendir, Zournas, Djouwak, Tabel, and handclaps — with a cutesy, slightly nasal Atlas evoking Bollywood chic.

You don’t need to know Arabic or French to understand the longing and desperation oozing from the Dead-Can-Dance-like “Yariet,” a template of handclaps, slow bass undertones, and flittering strings that conjure a mood of deep reflection. It is this song that may represent the journey Atlas herself continues to take, exploring new sonic domains.