Ylh Bye Bye

Sami Galbi’s debut Ylh Bye Bye is a heady collision of Maghrebi pop melodies, club-ready grit, and all the communal abandon of a North African street party. Drawing on 1980s Algerian raï, cassette-era love songs, and darker club atmospheres, Lausanne-based Sami Galbi crafts a sound that feels both euphoric and disoriented, mirroring some of the record’s deeper themes: the alienation of immigration, diaspora identity, and longing. The album balances trancey synths and punk energy with an omnivorous ear for regional texture, from Middle Eastern and North African rhythms to glints of Caribbean swing. Organic percussion (like bendir and karkabas) and Mediterranean folk motifs lend an earthy, handmade edge to the bass-heavy production. “Dakchi Hani” is irresistible: Turkish psych guitar lines unravel into a swirling, raï synth hook. “Kiss,” on the other hand, is one of the album’s most shadowy tracks, and you can clearly hear the influence of producer Ammar808’s Sofyann Ben Youssef, who mixed most of the record, in its brooding groove and trippy organ, which lay the groundwork for Galbi’s autotuned vocals and fierce spoken word delivery. True to the Bongo Joe ethos, Ylh Bye Bye is curious and wide open, moving between styles and geographies with a kind of joyful recklessness.