A tried and tested fusion group makes a fitting third album with their musical sorcerer – Michel Elefteriades.

There are some music industry figures who are reliable, single-string safe pairs of hands, and then there are the alchemic, relentlessly creative Renaissance men and women who have the ability to conjure up new sounds and rampaging careers, seemingly from thin air. Michel Elefteriades is one of the latter. His ever-active Elefrecords label has brought to life artists and collaborations ranging from Sicilian tenor Tino Favazza and the Orient Roots orchestra to seminal Arabo-Cuban combo Hanine Y Son Cubana.

This last pairing, matching Tarab artiste Hanine with some of Havana’s finest, shunts a new album onto our shelves this August with a well-judged wiggle of the hips. The tracks are primed to appeal to the festival crowd, who will remember Elefteriades’s 2004 Baalbeck concert ‘The Journey of Four Strings’ (four tracks) or the group’s 2009 performance at Beiteddine (six tracks), or be inspired by golden memories of this year’s shows and be drawn to footage of earlier acts. But genuine fans of the fusion concept will also find much to sling their mojitos to, with three brand new releases included to flesh out the festival recordings – though the concept is perhaps more successful live.

Plaintive, joyous or evocative, playful, tender or seductive, Hanine’s voice slides skilfully over and between the bombastics of her band, occasionally shimmying down to the orchestra pit for a cha-cha-cha exchange. The success of the fusion naturally works more or less depending on the track (the oddly reluctant ‘Rahou’, for example, showcasing the two styles less effectively than the sparky ‘Rosana’), but experimental fusion is just that, and the tracks will still challenge and inspire you to re-imagine both genres in novel ways. This is music that aims to entertain, and aural pleasure is almost guaranteed by a long drink and the humorous stylings of ‘Tutti Frutti’. Raise a glass to Elefteriades’ musical crucible while you’re at it...