The mighty parisian musicans-producers duet DUOUD – Mehdi Haddab & Smadj have been the first band to mix the North African oud with electronic sounds. The pair builds a musical cycle that looks to their North African roots while absorbing and morphing contemporary music styles break beats, techno, jazz, grooves & rock guitar sounds. Their Debut album « Wild Serenade » saw them winner for the Best Newcomer award in the BBC Music awards supported by 3 years world tour. Both of them have chosen the oud, just like one chooses one’s favorite pastry: with an accepted greed, without fear nor complex. And they truly became a phenomenon. Respectfully insolent with the instrument tradition, alternating “classical” Arab tunes and personal compositions, warmth of the acoustic instrument and electronic saturation, Duoud burnt the stage during many years.The new repertoire already polished in many countries. An album just like them. Smadj & Mehdi Haddab are as much pranksters as the Menshen who represent them on the album, these door keepers borrowed from Chinese iconography. Characters that go in pairs, funny and mystical at the same time; as much as these two very same musicians. Assumed playfulness, respectful insolence. An oxymoron of this ilk. “Les enfants terribles” of the oud are back! Reckless as ever: “Smadj and Mehdi Haddab are not only the guardians of a door: they bless the movement that makes the threshold pass, in one direction or the other”. Bertrand Dicale