mondo pop 7

My second altoradio.live show features Chinese dream-pop, Dutch Italo-disco, a Japanese synth Beatles cover, and this month’s cover star, Algeria’s dandy pop king of the 70s, Mohamed Mazouni.

Mazouni, a ‘dandy in exile’ in Paris, sang intoxicating songs that married Arab music and Western pop - songs of girls, love and fast cars, but also denouncing racism and speaking of the isolation of being an Algerian in 70s Paris. A strikingly handsome dude, he also made Scopitones (early videos that were shown on video jukeboxes in cafés in France) for many of his songs, giving him the nickname ‘the Polaroid singer.’ I’ll be spinning his epic earworm “Ecoute-moi Camarade”

This month’s Mondo Moment is from an incredible and unlikely collaboration between one of China’s biggest pop stars, Faye Wong, and the Scottish indie pop legends Cocteau Twins.