Areski Belkacem profile

Long time collaborator of Brigitte Fontaine and Jacques Higelin

Areski Belkacem (born January 23, 1940 in Versailles, France), is a composer, a multi-instrumental musician, actor and singer. He became friends with French regiment singer Jacques Higelin with whom he recorded an album in 1969 (his voice appears in the song "Remember" which he composed). Areski Belkacem later met Brigitte Fontaine in the Sixties. In 1969, they assembled unit Niok, a mainly impromptu spectacle with the Theatre of Lucernaire, in Paris. He accompanied Brigitte Fontaine and Art Ensemble of Chicago in the performance of "Comme à la radio" at Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier .
In 1970, he was the protagonist in the full-length feature film "Ça va, ça vient" from Pierre Barouh. At the same time, he composed the music for director Peter Brook and also took part as an actor within the framework of the International Theatrical Research Center.
In the seventies, mixing theatre and songs, the pair of Areski-Fontaine had created many spectacles. However, the eighties for them were less productive, despite the creation of "Act 2" in which he interpreted Brigitte Fontaine's text and also had a duet with her. The album "French Corazon" and the mini-tube "le nougat" in 1992 resurrected his reputation as a graceful musician. Since then, Areski Belkacem has become the principal composer for Brigitte Fontaine. He also collaborated with Barbara, Georges Moustaki and Sonic Youth, Inter Alia.
Other than composing songs, Areski Belkacem also composed musical scores for cinema ("Jeunesse dorée" or "A mort la mort") and theater (Fabrice Rozié's "Transatlantic liaison"). In 2005, based on an idea from Zep and Benoit Mouchart, he created a concert of drawings which shows an original comic strip on a large screen accompanied by live music. The show is now being shown annually at the Angoulême International Comics Festival. He is currently preparing a new solo disc, his second since "Un beau matin" (1970).