Blogarhythms

Blogging about music every day has afforded me plenty of opportunities to expose my musical biases. Of course that doesn’t mean I’ve spewed forth venomous diatribes about the music I hate every day. If you read Blogarhythms you know I never do that. But what it does mean is that I’ve often indulged my predilection for things like synthesizers, drum machines, bass, loops & samples, lo-fi recording techniques, quirky songwriting and falsetto vocals in this space.

It means you’ve probably witnessed my inclination towards dance-music, synth-whatever, Funk, Soul, Reggae, Jazz, Disco, Prog, Glam, “Yacht-Rock,” Power-Pop, Indie-Pop, laptop music and backpack Rap. It also means you’ve seen me coin a couple of multi-hyphen genre designations of my own in addition to discussing “retro” this, “revival” that, “neo” the other. and the “renaissance” of forgotten and possibly non-existent scenes aplenty. But sometimes music can be simpler, and far more complex, than all of that. It can exist outside of a time or space, and all possible predispositions. It’s just good music, and I like it.

Such is the case with Natacha Atlas, a Belgian-born, UK-raised vocalist and belly-dancer whose music reflects her multi-ethnic heritage (Morrocan, Egyptian, Sephardi Jewish, Palestinian and British), knowledge of multiple languages (Arabic, English, French and Spanish) and international upbringing. Until now she’s been known for fusing Arabic Pop music with Electronica and Dub alongside England’s Transglobal Underground and Jah Wobble. On her newest record, Ana Hina, she abandons the electronic beats in favor of a melange of cabaret Jazz and noirish Orchestral Pop that embraces the popular music and folkic traditions of Mediterranean Europe, North Africa and the Middle East courtesy of the wholly acoustic Mazeeka Ensemble.

The album is sung almost entirely in Arabic, with one song apiece in Spanish (”La Vida Callada,” a musical interpretation of a Frida Kahlo poem) and English (a stirring take on traditional Folk number “Black Is the Colour”). Sadly I’m not fluent enough in either Arabic or Spanish for the lrycism of the Lebanese, Egyptian and standards and ancient Andalusian folk songs to be effective. But the music itself, and Atlas’ voice — the merger of a French chansonnier, a smokey Trip-Hop chanteuse, Israeli diva Ofra Haza and Bollywood fixture Lata Mangeshkar — are inexplicably touching. The title-track, which transplants Samba and Bossa Nova into an Arabic-speaking quarter of continental Europe in the ’60s and puts it in the hands of a Jazz orchestra who sell its moody arrangement of strings, accordion and flutes to Albert Broccoli and Harry Saltzman as the score to one of their spy dramas, is my favorite.

Natacha Atlas “Ana Hina”

Seemingly as incongruous as Atlas amongst the music I tend to fancy, not to mention in the midst of a modern music scene littered with Pop-Punk bands, Rappers, R&B crooners and Urban-Pop acts, Kitty, Daisy & Lewis are an anachronistic young trio from Kentish Town, north London in England. The threesome stand out so much both aesthetically and chronologically from their peers because the music they play (with live assistance from their mother Ingrid Weiss, a former member of all-girl Post-Punk band The Raincoats, on bass and their father Graeme Durham on guitar) is steeped in the roots music — Rhythm & Blues, Country, Boogie-Woogie, Blues, Folk, Bluegrass, Hillbilly, proto-Rock & Roll and Rockabilly — of the Southern United States from a half-century (give or take) ago.

Brother Lewis, a DJ and collector of vintage 78RPM records, is also a gear collector who has filled a home studio with recording equipment from the ’40s and ’50s. He and his sisters — multi-instrumentalists all, who together play accordion, banjo, bass, drums, harmonica, guitar, lapsteel, piano, trombone, ukulele and xylophone, and share singing duties — recorded their eponymously-titled debut album — a collection of archaic covers and a few appropriately old-fashioned originals — at home on his antique equipment using the techniques favored by those responsible for their lacquer relics. They even make their music available on vinyl, including limited-edition self-cut 78’s! I haven’t been able to stop playing “Buggin’ Blues,” one of the group’s original compositions, which could easily be a lost Rhythms & Blues classic from the formative years of Rock & Roll.

Kitty, Daisy & Lewis “Buggin’ Blues”

Does it fit into your collection? Will it make you say “WTF?” when it pops up in a random shuffle on your MP3 player? Do you wear the right clothes or have the right haircut to match? Are you immersed in the “scene,” subculture, nationality or ethnicity attached to it’s creation? Do they play the instruments you wish you played in your non-existent band? None of that matters! It’s just good! And you should listen!