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b/art's Playlist for Friday, 22 Oktober 1999 (22.59 - 00.02)
#53: Arab Soundings Installment #3 | |
| Cut | Artist |
|---|---|
| Ghazal / Love Song | Jabr bin Husein Recorded in Tarif, Abu Dahbi [1] |
| The Wreck This Mess Story #031299 | |
| Gurdum Gurdum / Love Song | Amir Mohammed & Baba Hakim Recorded in Daulatabad, Afghanistan |
| Rih Ash-Sheikh Al-Kanal | Islamic Mystical Brotherhood |
| Wechma (with sonic browsing of the Arab World) | The Atlas Project [2] |
| Sava Riguel | Hassan Hakmoun [3] |
| Sader | Hassan Hakmoun vs Kronos Quartet |
| El Arbi | Don Was vs Cheb Khaled [4] |
| Take 7/8 | Don Was vs Ofra Haza [4] |
| Peace & Freedom | Rasboras Dub Tribe [5] |
| Raids on Irok & Holy Places / Bodies of American Flight Crews | Black Sifichi 1991 / remixed by b/art |
| Tar Solo in Dastgah Mahur | Hussein Ali Zodeh Recorded in Teheran, Iran [1] |
| Cut 7 Arab Radio | Atlas Project [2] |
| Gatlato | Atlas Project [2] |
| Bala Moussaka | Pharoah Sanders & Maleem Mahmoud Ghania |
| Kjheret Elvis | Chaba Amina & Cheb Rabah [6] |
| L-Awsaf | Moroccan Street Music |
| Lilah Ya S'haba | Najat Aatabou |
| The Asssassinations (Rimbaud) | Hashisheen / Nicole Blackman vs Anton Fier [7] |
| A Cassette Street Vendor 1987 in Fez | Ambient Recordings Tape #4 by b/art |
| Android Cleaver | Muslimgauze [8] |
| The Wreck This Mess Story #031299 | |
| [1] "Music in the World of Islam" Recordings by Jean Jenkins & Poul Rovsing Olsen on Tangent Records is a beautiful effort to bring the rooted sounds of the Islamic world to the fore. In my agnostic struggle to underestand the disparity between this world and the Islamic world of faith in a sense were given some clarity on this disc. I see an adherence to the Koran but then an adversarial or radical independence from all dogma and the use of these two lines in Arab pop music. In my view it is pop singers or musicians of this world who help mitigate what seems to be an ever constricting notion of what Islam encompasses. As with all orthodoxies and fundamentalisms, the joy of living in this life is, if not denounced, then devalued. And in many fundamentalist hegemonies (look at the Christian right or Hindu or Islamic fundamentalists and you will see the same language and anxiety offered in the face of pop music that honestly deals with human experience, the same shrill calls for censorship. In the case of some Islamic fundamnetalists - in Algeria - the murder of pop singers, in the case of some pop singers in Israel, death threats from zionist fundamentalists). In listening to these music(s) i try to differentiate the spin, the hype, the dogma, the hypocrisy, the walk from the talk... Jean Jenkins wrtes: "Despite the strictures of the early legalists who frowned upon music ... of all types -0 religious, classical, and folk - are highly developed and differentiated in the Moslem world of today. ... The human voice is the foundation of all music within the Islamic world ... for altho there is no prohibition against music in the Qu'ran itself, it is known the music was played at the wedding both of the prophet and of his daughter, subsequent austerity laws against instrumental music, resultied in a great and varied development of vocal music..." | |
| [2] Wechma, the second Atlas Project CD on Prikosnovenie [prikos@worldnet.fr http://www.multimania.com/prikos] is a stunning record of what the French call "topographiques sonores", a subtle and sublime disc that pulsates between the hidden vibrations of many musics both found and manufactured as produced by Norsq, the genius behind the French ground-breaking ethno-techno band of the late 80s, the Grief. As if soundings were made in countries without names. Predecessors might include Terre Thaemlitz, Holger Czukay, Zoviet France. Again, stunning disc. | |
| [3] Hakmoun's music is so beautiful and transcends all boundaries and isms. | |
| [4] Of all Rai singers Cheb Khaled is the most famous and in this case fame is a just reward, the synchronicity between talent and reward is justified because Khaled sings unlike any of the other Rai stars - faith and reverie in a pop format. Here excellently and unobtrusively produced by Don Was as he does with Ofra Haza as well. | |
| [5] "French Dub Connection" on the German label Echo Beach echo.beach@on-line.de is one of the single best compilations of dub I have ever heard -still is - and the more so because it is FRENCH dub, a neglected and fairly unique mutation. The French language and how it blends with the surrounding air in a hum and the french mentality somehow seems very well suited to spliff split beats that contain much silence between notes. Inhale and contemplate. rough and beautiful. In this case the "natural" hybridization of Dub post-rasta recording studio culture and Arab chant influences seem perfectly suited to one another. Includes 7 Dub, Ethnician, Rasboras Dub Tribe, LXR, Laurent Garnier, Housatonic. Highly recommended. | |
| [6] "Rai! Rai!" A compilation on La Voix du Maghreb / Buda Musique is a collection of Rai singers. Rai developed long ago in the region of Oran, a harbour area of Algeria, near Morocco and Spain. It is a hybrid that reflects the many influences that have been floating around in this region for centuries - mainly Bedouin, Moroccan, Spanish and French. Rai popped up in the clubs of this region and reflected the everyday concerns of the people. Rai translates into opinion or way of thinking and the themes were like those of all popular music - everyday life, love, jealousy, attraction, misery, unmentionable desires ... In the 70s the sound began to change with the introduction of electronics and advanced recording techniques. Pop Rai like all great world musics mixes the local, the ethnic, the indigenous (derboukas and violins) with the modern (synthesizers, drum machines and mixers). | |
| [7] "Hashisheen: The End of Law" is an informative cd produced by Bill Laswell / PL Wilson / Janet Rienstra on Sub Rosa. It tells the story of the mysterious Persian sect of assassins founded in 1090 AD. Anyone opposed to their secret freethinking ways might be disposed of by one of its secret assassins. Hasan-i Sabbah, the sect's founder, built an elaborate and exquisite garden of delights as a reward for his hitmen's loyalty to the cause. The myth of the sect is told mostly through fragments of texts written by the sect's members. It is narrated by Peter Lamborn Wilson, Iggy Pop, Patti Smith and Sussan Deyhim among others. The music sometimes creates the aural approximation of what the garden may have been like. However fascinating the texts and however lilting some of the music, the Bill Laswell-produced music sometimes strays into sappiness which undermines the fascinating texts. And this from someone who admires many of Bill Laswell's multitudinous sonic projects. A bold attempt with mixed results, and yet, definitely worth some attention. www.subrosa.net | |
| [8] "Lo-Fi India Abuse" Muslimgauze (BSI = www.bsi-records.com) Is the latest in Muslimgauze selection. It is a crash between Systemwide & Bryn Jones. The result is a destabilizing mix of noise and harmony. Beats exist where no beats have existed before - at the moment music begins to tear apart , open up and become white noise. Glitches, fades, over-modulation, echo turning back upon itself, the static in the air prior to a storm, crowded medina ambience, sharp middle eastern percussive beats- these are the "instruments" employed to get the propellant and impatient effect of turmoil in spirit and sound as if there are forces acting upon the production beyond the control of humans. These are the crucial sounds of crisis where the agit prop message of support for oppressed peoples is at once enhanced and enshrouded by the impressionistic abstraction of dub on the edge of falling apart. This is the kind of sound 95% of all listeners will hear and wonder if there isn't something wrong with your sound system, your cd, your mind - the same reaction you get from the early Mark Stewart discs or Stravinsky or... | |