Ifriqiyya Electrique are a French/Tunisian quintet whose sound is a dense, chaotic and deliberately overpowering blend of Western industrial rock and North African traditional/ritual music. Initially, guitarist François Cambuzat and bassist Gianna Greco, who also played together in the duo Putan Club (and occasionally backed Lydia Lunch) traveled to Tunisia to witness and document the banga, an extended musical and spiritual ritual with a reputation for driving audiences into ecstatic trance states. They were hoping to come away with some field recordings, and perhaps an understanding of how this music affected people the way it did. They wound up, after a long period of immersion in the local culture, joining forces with three local vocalists and percussionists — Yahya Chouchen, Fatma Chebbi, and Tarek Soltan — and forming Ifriqiyya Electrique.