Skanderani cross musical borders on adventurous new album «Sinaí Express»
Galician project Skanderani release Sinaí Express, seven tracks drawing on rock, funk, North African sounds and musical collage.
Musical borders are often less interesting than the ways artists cross them. Skanderani, the Galician project associated with Galician-Moroccan musician Ahmed Moussa Caramés, have released «Sinaí Express», a seven-track record approaching forty minutes in length. Its palette brings together alternative-rock guitars, funk rhythms, North African influences and fragments of recorded voices.
A journey that refuses one genre
References to Mano Negra, Fela Kuti, Rachid Taha, The Clash and Khruangbin give an indication of the different musical territories informing the album. Yet simply listing influences does not explain its purpose. The more interesting question is how these elements interact within the songs, allowing familiar sounds to take on unexpected roles.
Earlier tracks «Maalouf», «Califa F1» and «Caribbo (OVD)» offered entry points into the band’s eclectic approach. The latter includes recorded fragments linked to Lole y Manuel and Salvador Dalí. Samples become interruptions and additional voices within the arrangement, rather than mere references added for decoration.
Music as a conversation between places
Skanderani draw on a long tradition of musicians who have crossed rock with African rhythms, dance music and experimental production. That lineage is useful, provided that it does not erase the characteristics of each influence. The project is at its strongest conceptually when those differences become part of a distinctive song rather than an inventory of genres.
The album also refers to literary and artistic figures such as Amin Maalouf and William Burroughs. The result is presented as a collage of cultural fragments, connecting musical ideas through encounters rather than following a single fixed narrative.
Listening beyond the labels
With seven relatively long pieces, «Sinaí Express» invites listening as a complete journey. It may appeal to fans of experimental guitar music, funk and cross-cultural songwriting, but its wider value is the possibility of discovering something without needing to agree on a genre name first.