Arabic music (not elsewhere classified)

The Afropop Worldwide website and podcast folks (writer Banning Eyre and others) are heading off to Egypt shortly to research and do a focus on Egyptian sounds. While his background is more in Malian and other African countries that are not quite North African, hopefully they will prepare some interesting coverage

The NY Times and this Seattle paper (see below) love the new ECM label album Arco Irisfrom Moroccan vocalist Amina Alaoui who performs old Andalusian compositions here. I haven't heard it but I am intrigued. Ilxer Sanpaku liked the Jon Balke & Amina Alaoui album Siwan that came out on ECM a year or 2 back.

http://www.seattlepi.com/lifestyle/blogcritics/article/Music-Review-Amina-Alaoui-Arco-Iris-1444673.php

I see from her world music central dot org bio that she is a prominent exponent of the ancient music style gharnati and has worked with musicians from medieval, Persian, and flamenco musical backgrounds. Gharnati (Arabic for Granada), the bio says, is one of the major Andalusian musical styles, migrated from Granada, Spain, to Morocco in the 15th century.

Still need to listen to her.

Briefly listened to Amina Alaoui. Wow, what a voice. Interestingly, it kind of reminds me in its somber voice-only mode on the first cut of some Jewish cantors and vocalists I have heard over the years. Other songs feature oud and flamenco guitar and more. Woefully few reviews online of the album so far.

I wonder if Rudiph likes her or would if he heard her?

Met a guy who plays in some Arabic orchestra in NYC. May try to go to free show in Damrosch Park.

x-post

Some of the Amina Alaoui album is a little too samey--melancholy nearly fado-like vocals and minimalist flamenco guitar strumming, but on other cuts her voice is exquisite and the instrumental work just lively enough.

I see that Banning Eyre liked Amina Alaoui on NPR

http://www.npr.org/2011/07/12/137794182/moroccan-spanish-songstress-reimagines-past

Someone e-mailed me the below but I can't find anything on youtube or elsewhere about the performers-

Flamenco Compas, brother and sister dancers from the Salman family of Damascus,Syria

will be performing at :

the Black Fox Lounge, downstairs, 1723 Conn Ave nw, just north of Dupont Circle.

Wednesday July 20 th 9pm
Also on stage are Torcuato Zamora on guitar, Joe Darensbosurg singing and Steve Bloom on cajon! Dancer Audrey Elizabeth joins in Zambra.

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/21/video-of-a-syrian-protest-anthem/

Not the sort of thing I had in mind when starting this thread, but this is pretty good:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMjem_VhIeI

Decent vocals for "alternative rock."

That's how I see them described anyway.

More rocking, not so slow-paced:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR-NWgJExto

I do get the sense from what little I've read (which is mostly Wikipedia and youtube comments) that the interest here mostly revolves around the lyrics.

Show this show back in June. Just saw this youtube video and thought it might be up your street, _Rudipherous_:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-i5hsQBj2Y

I'm still liking the 2011 Amina Alaoui album even if sometimes she sound like she's in need of anti-depressants

This is not bad. The synth squiggles seem very Arabic to me, playing off much more mainstream sorts of Arabic music, but maybe from a while back. This is kind of trip-hoppy, if you're wondering whether or not to click on it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jM2LRDYOU40

The multi-volume Best of Oldies series on Spotify is recommended. The emphasis is on khaleeji, with occasional surprises from outside the Gulf.

Search (on Spotify): Hanan - Rayka

one of my favorite new sound (or as I used to call it "clap clap") songs. Now quite dated sounding, of course, though new sound was born a bit dated sounding. I particularly like the false start. The opening sounds like a very cheap attempt at a Philly Sound soul hit from the 70s.

I could make a playlist, but listening is too unfocused and unvaried to work on something like that these days.

I always imagine a video for some of these songs with little clapping hand-puppet "Arabs."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vgvw1B7B-c

I don't know if I've linked to this one before, but this is great. However, this is from around the same era as another song I am still hoping to find, with spring-time electric guitar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLvOC3bFpk0

Nice voice and nicely mixed instrumentation. The dancing is so folky. So she's Lebanese but first had success in Jordan, if the bio I read is correct.

http://www.npr.org/2012/06/04/153919877/revolutionary-road-from-carthage-to-cairo?ft=1&f=153919877

I have not listened to these NPR news reports or the mix of Arabic and Western (but heard there) songs on the playlist

I suggested that perhaps Umm Kathoum was the Bruce Springsteen of classic Egyptian music. This proposal was neither accepted nor rejected.

Bruce Springsteen? Way to insult the woman. (From that NPR link.) Bruce Springsteen?

*

I was sitting in a library Friday, attempting to rip cassettes to music CDRs. I only came away with one, unfortunately, so I'll have to try to figure out what is causing things not to take. However, sitting there listening to some of my favorite music with head phones, I was often swept away. Isn't ecstasy what I most want from music, most of the time?

It seems "my music" (as in my favorite music, the music that matters to me most) is scattered around the world like fragments of the divine in a Kabbalistic universe.

What thou lovest well remains, the rest is dross.

http://thequietus.com/articles/12078-electro-chaabi-cairo-four

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/fa/contents/articles/opinion/2013/05/egypt-new-music-mahraganat-sadat-electro-shaabi.html

http://www.timesofisrael.com/a-new-techno-sound-from-egypts-streets/

still need to check out youtubes of Sadat and others identified with "mahraganat"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwxAxR5HMgo

eh

When I read about some music, it always sounds more exciting than when I finally hear it. Oh well.

Tues., Aug. 6
Eisenhower Theater of the Kennedy Center 6 pm El Gusto, an Algerian orchestra consisting of the students of the first music class led by the founder of chaabi music—El Anka, reunites after 50 years of separation for a U.S. tour that will invite Americans into the world of chaabi music, the passion and soul of the Algerian Casbah.

Kennedy Center press release

Chaabi Checker!

Ha ha

It doesn't all sound like that though Curmudgeon, it's pretty varied.

Check this mix Joost from Incubate in his Cairo Liberation Front guise did for us.

Also you might enjoy new wave Chaabi better than the electro 'Chaa3i' stuff.

Islam Chipsy for example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KpkvJB529M

RIP Warda, 1939-2012. I'm a little sad I'm only finding out now that she is deceased. For old school singers dressed in "new sound" (c. the 90s I think) wrappings, this works fairly well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1J0v6gxvqE

An excerpt from Esmaouni (music by Baligh Hamdi, to whom she was married for a time). Picks up a bit after about two minutes, if anyone gets impatient:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0yy7_wMPck

There was a time when I played her songs nearly every day.

a strong voice. I like this style too

I'm usually reticent about posting my stuff on ILX unless I think the piece is so marginal that it might be of interest to certain people. I hope this is one of those pieces.

Remembering Syria: Mark Gergis Of Sublime Frequencies interviewed about dabke, choubi and how the Middle East is viewed in the West

Thanks. Interesting

Haven't heard this, but here's a pr email excerpt

Sound: the Encounter (December 2013 Tour: NYC, Washington DC and Houston TX dates) brings together adventurous musicians from Iran and Syria who seek to reassemble diverse expressions of a shared musical heritage in contemporary forms. The result is a collection of newly-developed and arranged musical pieces inspired by the millennium-old musical legacy of the ancient Silk Route that are rooted in classical and folk traditional musical forms and re-imagined within a new artistic frame.

Ancient instruments (bagpipes, flutes and drums) take on new contemporary identities in the hands of award-winning Syrian composer and saxophonist Basel Rajoub, acclaimed Iranian musician and dancer Saeid Shanbezadeh, and up-and-coming Iranian virtuoso percussionist Naghib Shanbezadeh

Great old brooding Saleh Abdul Gafoor song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KP6V88ZEJ58

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=aAc7a Can anyone tell me the what the music is in this clip?

Curious about what this was now... can you repost a working link?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tm-t5EGkNYM it was this (it was on a video of some kids driving in odd ways, but that seems to have vanished)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQm5BnhTBEQ here it is...

محمد فهد <- Apparently the singer is Mohamed Fahd

I bought this CD a long time ago, but have recently been listening to it in the car. A good, maybe very good, collection of relatively early material, which I think I like more at this point than her later, sprawling songs:

http://resources.wimpmusic.com/images/84cd234a/e429/4baf/a0db/4ac948df3cbb/1280x1280.jpg

On Spotify too.

I like this song in particular:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkpPn2wE0Q4

Her name came up on the Oum Kalthoum thread, but I don't remember if I've ever posted anything much by her. This is fairly representative, from what I've heard. Has that late 60s/early 70s semi-psychedelic sound.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0aqI0Pz4DY

I assume that is the newly trendy Omar Khorshid on guitar. (He's all over big name Egyptian recordings in this time period.)

Another:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev0FU9e5XA4