By the time Syna Awel reaches “Incantation”, the sun has dropped. It closes an open-air acoustic session she filmed in a single afternoon this year, five Amazigh songs in a row, the last easing into a jam as the daylight goes.

She is Franco-Algerian, a singer and percussionist who grew up in Aït Bouaddou, a village in the Kabyle mountains of northern Algeria. Her songs come out of Amazigh oral tradition, poetry and melody carried by voice, and she brings them into contemporary jazz.

For the session she sings with Luc Lavenne on guitar, Anis Agrebi on oud, Tony Sgro on derbouka and Mahir Bostandzija on percussion. Where the album set her voice against jazz piano and bendir, this acoustic line-up answers with oud and hand percussion.

Awel sings “Incantation” in Kabyle. The line “Kul yiwen yesɛa tidet-ines” means everyone holds their own truth, and the next line adds that everyone does what they can. She sets that against the turning of a day: the sun sets, the moon takes the evening, and it all comes round again.

The songs come from Awel, her 2024 debut, arranged by drummer Karim Ziad and released on Imago Records. The full session, subtitled in Kabyle and French, plays on her YouTube channel.

Stream “Incantation” HERE and get your copy of Awel following THIS LINK