Sidi Bémol, also known as Hocine Boukella, is set to release ‘Guellal Montréal’, his 13th album as a singer-songwriter, which marks the culmination of a 30-year career! This new album will be released on 18 September 2026 (digitally and on CD) via CSB Productions / L’Autre Distribution. Also worth noting is the publication of a book on 18 September 2026, featuring lyrics, translations, sheet music…
The first single, “Les Menottes”, has been available since 5 June 2026 on all platforms. The second single, “Chicoutimiya”, will be available on 26 June 2026.
Guellal Montréal is a musical project born from the encounter between the Berber traditions of northwestern Algeria and the Indigenous cultures of Quebec. Through this album, Hocine Boukella, also known as Cheikh Sidi Bemol, continues an artistic exploration he began several years ago, focusing on the guellal—an ancestral Berber percussion instrument—the melhoun— sung poetry considered one of the precursors of raï—and the possible connections between these cultural heritages and Indigenous American spiritualities.
Line-up:
Hocine BOUKELLA: vocals and guitar; Youssef BOUKELLA: bass and backing vocals; Abdenour DJEMAÏ: guitar and backing vocals; Maamoun DEHANE: drums and backing vocals.
Guest: Mehdi ASKEUR: guellal and backing vocals.
The starting point for this album is the guellal, the central instrument of Oran’s folk music. With its deep bass notes and sharp, crisp beats, it has accompanied the songs of the melhoun for centuries—this rhythmic poetry performed by singer-poets who recount stories of the world in cafés, markets, and popular festivals. At a very young age, his discovery of masters like Cheikh Hamada left a profound impression on Hocine Boukella. A passionate fan of blues and rock, he immediately sensed a kinship between melhoun and the blues: the same emotional intensity, the same way of transforming poetry into vibration.
Through his travels in Quebec, he discovered Indigenous cultures through their music and, above all, their poetry. The writings of Joséphine Bacon and Natasha Kanapé Fontaine stirred in him an emotion similar to the one he had felt when encountering traditional Berber poetry. Despite the distance between these peoples, he found a shared connection to nature, memory, and life itself.
It was from this insight that Guellal Montréal was born: a dialogue between languages, rhythms, and imaginations. The songs blend Arabic, Kabyle, French, and English, drawing inspiration from melhoun as well as traditional and contemporary Indigenous texts.
To bring this project to life, he collaborated with Tacfarinas Kichou, a Quebec-based percussionist and instrument maker of Algerian origin whom he met in Montreal. Passionate about traditional rhythms from around the world, Sidi Bémol has developed a unique approach to the guellal by designing his own instruments and incorporating contemporary and Native American influences into them.
Guellal Montréal is thus an album about passing on traditions and cultural fusion, where traditions engage in a free dialogue with the sounds of today. It is a musical journey between Algeria and Quebec, between ancestral memory and contemporary creation.
