Argan

One of several Moroccan groups to record for the Swiss Barbarity label, which issues product centering around the vision articulated by another Moroccan outfit, Aisha Kandisha's Jarring Effects. A few AKJE principals, in fact, have secondary roles on Argan's first internationally distributed album, issued in 1996. Mixing electronic programming with banjo, darbukka, violin, and ney, the group draw from rai, Western dance music, and dub. It's not, however, as imaginative or risk-taking as some other Moroccan product that Barbarity has released. Their 1999 album, South Moroccan Motor Berber, put more emphasis on electric guitar; combined with more imaginative and less slick use of electronics, it made for a better brand of world fusion.