In the heart of Tunisia lies a giant salt lake called Chott El Djerid, or “Lagoon of the Land of Palms”. Measuring 160 miles across, the lake has been the subject of numerous works of art, most famously Star Wars, where it was used as a filming location in A New Hope. Although Chott El Djerid is crossable by foot or car in the summer, when the lake is dry, this is generally inadvisable—the salt crust on the surface is often thin and unstable. What appears as a desert can quickly turn into a drowning pool.
It’s against this backdrop that Chott arrives, the second full-length album from Tunisian producer Taroug, out via Denovali Records. Everything about this LP is echoey and huge, from its searing string arrangements to its down-swooping synths and solar-plexus-pummeling drums. Like its namesake, Chott feels both Saharan and oceanic, an album that creates an illusion of safety and solid land while constantly threatening to give way underneath you.
That’s evident from the beginning, when the warm, resplendent pads of “Wehmut” give way to the eerie, back-masked synth stylings of “1995”. Led by juddering, slow-motion kick drums and lyrics that speak of half-remembered childhood dreams, “1995” is an ominous slice of downtempo that unfolds like heat shimmering off a desert plain. Just like a real mirage, the moments of respite can’t exactly be trusted. The neat little piano arpeggio at the end of the chorus is sandwiched between terror-stricken violins and lyrics of hide-and-seek games gone awry. It’s a musical eye of the storm, a reminder that not every childhood game is safe from real-life horror.
The contrasts on Chott are what give the record its true brilliance. Taroug deftly blends pulsating, ambient-tinged electronica with Arabian string arrangements and field recordings of Tunisian landscapes. Nowhere is this more beautifully done than on “Nakhla”, where mournful synths and a skillfully cut-and-pasted drum loop are overlaid with a sharp, hissing sound that—it turns out—is the actual sound of palm trees bending and contorting in the wind. Meanwhile, “Saraab” captures the sensory experience of heat and thirst, fusing breathy, pitch-shifted grunts with desertscapes of elongated drone.
The emotional high point of the record is probably “Mides”. Here, bell-like tones and soft, clattering hand drums gradually build into a chorus of wailing violins and menacing Arabian woodwinds. Taroug is a master at building tension, and that’s the real leap he’s made between the making of his first album, Darts & Kites, and Chott. Every song here is brimming with both subtlety and danger. There are false endings, dramatic beat switchups, and other surprises for the listener who dares tread Chott’s waters (or its sands, depending on the time of year).
Although most of the lyrics here are sung in Arabic, language barriers hardly seem to matter on Chott. The album doesn’t give you coherent storylines to hold on to so much as frightening images and dreamlike motifs, and it uses a spacious, minimal approach to conjure the feeling of being alone and adrift in a vast wasteland. It’s a work of desolate beauty, one that certainly slakes your thirst but never gives itself away completely, gradually revealing itself in layers of thick, rumbling sonic murk.