Anouar Brahem: The Astounding Eyes of Rita (ECM 179 8628)
Tunisian oud master Anouar Brahem has enjoyed the deep interaction with bass clarinet before. This time it is not John Surman but the German musician from Norma Winstone’s band Klaus Gesing. With them are the Swedish electric bassist from Nik Bartsch’s Ronin, Bjorn Meyer and the Lebanese drummer Khaled Yassine.
The title is inspired by a poem by the late Palestinian writer Mahmoud Darwish, and there is a stronger North African/Middle Eastern strain running through the music than on recent Brahem discs. And there is a fascinating interchangeability about the parts the instruments play. Sometimes Meyer takes the bass line, sometimes the lead with Brahem, while Gesing takes the bottom end with the clarinet.
On Stopover At Djibouti, the rhythm takes an almost reggae turn, just for a bit. In fact, the ease with which the band slides in and out of groove through different melodic and harmonic material is extraordinary – it’s as music as glorious, multi-coloured, multi textured cloth, all seamlessly sewn together.
It’s also music that blends exquisitely the spiritual and the physical, the sacred and the profane, like a dance at once sacrificial and seductive.
On the title track, Brahem sings quietly along with his melody line, while Meyer adds a dance figure beneath him and Yassine completes it with a throbbing darbouka. The piece develops into a lovely duet of interweaving oud and bass clarinet lines, before Brahem soars on one of his ecstatic solos, and Gesing follows it, raising the temperature even further. A gem.
Categories: CD review
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