Arabic music (not elsewhere classified)

RAHIM ALHAJ
Iraqi Music in a Time of War
(Voxlox)

Last February, mild-mannered Iraqi matinee idol Kazem al-Sahir played a sparsely populated Beacon. His 17-piece orchestra was exotically anodyne to me, painfully nostalgic to the attendant Iraqis. But either way it was steeped in denial. Recorded April 5 at Manhattan's Sufi Books, with Baghdad under attack, this solo oud recital is the opposite. The conservatory-trained AlHaj is a Saddam torture victim who escaped in 1991. Yet he is appalled by the destruction of his homeland. And yet again he betrays no rage: however uninspired as "concepts," the "compassion, love, and peace" he preaches are courageous as music. With little knowledge of oud or taste for classical guitar, I'm struck by how unexotic he seems—how his sound, melodicism, and note values bridge East and West while remaining Iraqi. I'm impressed by how modest virtuosity can be in a classical tradition that honors simplicity. And I'm drawn in by the historical context, which implicates me in that tradition. B PLUS

The audio quality is poor, but it's good enough for me. I like the sound of the instrumentalists accompanying him. This music avoids some of the excesses of the old Egyptian popular music arrangments. I like the fact that there is practically always a guttering ney playing along the lines he is singing. (As I typed that, the ney and just about everything else dropped away to make room for a kanun solo. I like that too.)

Yousra Dhahbi: Rhapsody for Lute [Female oudist--and there aren't many around, or at least not many who make it onto a CD--from Tunisia.]
Ensemble Al-Umayri: The Sawt of Kuwait
Ensemble Muhammad Faris: The Sawt of Bahrain
Various: Treasures of Algerian Music [2 CDs worth of older, archival, material.]

Mohamed Ali Ensemble: Al Hawanem also looks good.

(These are listed on the new releases section at www.rashid.com.)

I think it's interesting that while falsetto is traditionally frowned upon in Egyptian, and I think Lebanese and Syrian music, it seems pretty common in music from the Gulf states. At the very least, I think I've heard a couple Kuwaiti stars sing in falsetto.

It might not even be really good. There's some pretty cheesy stuff going on, but there's still something really great about it.

At the very least, they seem to be more about a musique concrete/cut-up approach than simply a presentation of recordings of Arabic music (as though they are simply using Arabic music as raw material).

But then again, maybe I will like them. Maybe they really are making a statement about the aural world that exists in the Arab world. (Call to prayer, Qur'anic recitation, clash of everything else music?)

The CD itself is a totally unprofessional piece of work, with two or three more songs than there are tracks (and I mean songs that are completely unrelated to what came before on the same track). Plus, sometimes there will be a pause after one song and then another one will begin, then the track will end, then that song will resume with the next track. It's made in Houston, TX.

Accompanied Nazem al-Gazali in Iraq. That's about as prestigious as you can get for that time and place.

http://www.negrophonic.com/words/

"saturday, the Arabesk throwdown in Bruxelles. I´ll DJ with an eastward lean and do a brief collabo with Chronomad (who´ll play Persian percussion thru guitar amps over my beats). My Istanbul point man Serhat Köksal aka 2/5 BZ is gonna blast us with a live audio-visual set. No turistik - No egzotik! Turkish lo-fi punk sampler saz psychedelia never sounded/looked so good!"

http://www.shahrokhmusic.com/oldmusic.htm

there are samples here. his album "ghoroob" ("dusk") is particularly amazing for the classic psychedelic instrumentation. his "dance mix" album has fantastic irangeles beats.

bombastic = defining characteristic of persian music!

OTOH if some of it sounds saccharine, i'd venture that it's because of cultural distance. same way asian music might sound harsh to westernized ears.

On the other hand, I've been extremely happen with some of the trad. pop Syrian things I've been buying, and I really like that (mostly solo) kanun CD by Abrahama Salman, and I definitely am going to look into a couple recent Gulfen releases. (See above.)

http://f1.pg.briefcase.yahoo.com/bc/askthegirl/lst?.dir=/Party+from+Damascus!

Yes!

wow, what a video