Modern rai is deeply rooted in older forms of Algerian popular music, which come in many styles: town and country, north/south, region to region and so on. Even the city music is very varied.
Aissaoua presents a music for ghaita oboe, heavy on percussion and originally linked with the trance-inducing ceremonies of North African Sufi mysticism.
Dahmane Elharrachi is something special: in these '60s recordings, he used a gutty urban voice to sing about the concerns of the older generation of immigrants into France.