Blues/Review Karim Albert Kook, Édouard Bineau - Roots of Blues

As a young teenager, Karim Albert Kook discovered the guitar by chance: a magical gift from one of his brothers. As a child, he came from Algiers with his family to seek treatment for an illness that confined him to a wheelchair. He found a lifesaving escape in this guitar, which would have a decisive influence on his destiny.

Through the lived experiences of two distinct voices, “Roots of Blues” reclaims and reinterprets blues legacy in a way that goes beyond simple music. Through 10 inspired pieces that rediscover, reframe, and reignite the emotional intensity of the blues, guitarist and gravel-voiced singer Karim Albert Kook and Édouard Bineau's expressive harmonica create a very personal and historically aware trip.

This record converses with the past rather than merely echoing it. Similar to the blues' own migrant and diasporic origins, Kook and Bineau's backgrounds—Algerian and French, respectively—infuse their music with a deep feeling of cultural confluence. Their views steer clear of imitation. Rather, they infuse each composition with social awareness and emotional sincerity, shedding light on the genre's relationship to injustice, resiliency, and the universal yearning for acceptance.

The passion and soul of the blues' birthplace are captured musically in “Roots of Blues.” Bineau's harmonica, known as the "Mississippi saxophone," weaves melodic lines that are simultaneously melancholy and defiant, while the bottleneck slide guitar slides with agonizing perfection. Each piece feels like a page torn from a forgotten journal because of the recordings' rawness, which recalls the smokey intimacy of a backroom speakeasy or a juke joint.

In the end, this album is a metamorphosis rather than only a tribute. Kook and Bineau remind us that the blues is a live, breathing genre that is constantly changing and resonating by grounding it in their own international identities and contemporary experiences.