Mundovibe,
CD Review
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Middle Eastern music often gets the short shrift when it combined with contemporary music, often appearing as a sample — a moaning wail, the strumming of an oud or darbouka – laid over some formulaic beats (often filed under “new age”). The Spy From Cairo has dispersed of this malignment on “Secretly Famous”, creating a music that truly integrates traditional Arabic music with dub and rhythmic production. Purists might not approve but this is some seriously dope interpretation of traditional Middle Eastern music. Think Thievery Corporation with Arab influence and you’ve got an idea of what the Spy From Cairo has accomplished on these 13 tracks, representing the full breadth of sounds from the region. For the uninitiated, The Spy From Cairo is Moreno Visini, a low profile but extremely accomplished musician, producer and remixer who has been a major contributor to New York City’s underground globalist scene. The man is to Arabic music what Bob Baer is to spying, you might not know him but he’s left his imprint on dozens of recordings including DJ Sabo, Organic Grooves, Turntables on the Hudson as well as the Buddha Bar compilations.
With its 13 songs, there’s a lot of turf to cover on “Secretly Famous” and The Spy From Cairo runs the full breadth of Arabic sounds, opening with a rush of nay and mizmar flutes and Darbouka rhythms on ‘Nayphony’, based on traditional wedding music from Jordan. ‘Kurdish Delight’ is a bass- and dub-driven twist on traditional Kurdish mountain music with clarinet, darbouka and frame drum. After these two instrumental songs we’re seduced by several songs featuring guest vocalist Ghalia Benali who grew up in an artistic family in the south of Tunisia. Benali is a well regarded Arabic singer and leaves her scintillating and exotic mark on “Secretly Famous”. One such song is ‘Blood and Honey’, a varied and transfixing dedication to the Balkans, a region filled with flowers and fertile land as well as a long history of wars.
A standout track on “Secretly Famous” is ‘Kembe”, an infectious blending of vocals by Alladin, Oud ( arabic guitar ), darbouka and a synthesized Mizmar along with TSFC’s trade mark beat and bass line. Things get funky on ‘Jennaty’ with its disco-ish guitar riffing and beats and Benali’s voice, which perfectly blends with the music. Both are great songs for heating up the dancefloor. Continuing past the half-way mark of “Secretly Famous” is ‘Oud Funk’, a blend of a “Rai” type of melody and a twisted “afrofunk’ beat. It starts with a peaceful Oud taksim ( Oud improvisation ) and it kicks in with Darbouka, beat and string arrangements. As one can detect by now, there is some serious instrumentation and arrangement happening on “Secretly Famous”. This is not some patched together project, each song is a careful amalgamation of traditional and modern and you’d be hard pressed to detect the separation between the two.
Continuing on the trans-Arabic journey is the deep and hypnotic ‘Sufi Disco’ with a brooding Nay riff and some wicked Oud riffs backed by some tripped out Moog sounds and a house groove. ‘Reggada’ is a bhangra-fied twist on this traditional style of Moroccon music with male vocals and a seriously heavy dub vibe that kicks in about half way into the song. Love the part where the vocals do a sort of tongue roll. ‘Ala Shan’ is a dubified remix of a very famous song by the (late) one and only Farid Al Atrache, the Egyptian “Father of the Oud”. The final track blends Benali’s soaring vocals with sitar and tabla, a calming end to a Nat Geo soundclash of old meeting new. The Spy from Cairo has masterfully infiltrated the inner sanctum of middle eastern sounds on “Secretly Famous”, seducing an unsuspecting audience with his adroit musicianship and production methods. And in the process, he’s blown his cover: the Spy From Cairo is no longer a best kept secret. - J.C. Tripp
02/08/10
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