Shalabi, Sam

Eid

Label: Alien8 Recordings Country: Canada

"The man behind the band Shalabi Effect also produced various solo released but it's been a while. Following Osama and On Hashish, there is now Eid, his third solo CD. In 2006 Sam Shalabi found himself living in Cairo, Egypt and worked on two separate interests: working with singers he liked and creating 'modern Arabic pop'. It's hard to say if he succeeded in that. Simply because there are not points of reference for me in this area of modern Arab pop. The opening tune' Hawaga' brings us straight to arab sounding textures with his playing on the Oud. Did Shalabi go out there and will he stay there? No, he doesn't. 'Jessica Simpson', the second track has a psychedelic almost Beatle like opening riff, but great vocals by Radwon Moumneh.

From then you realize this album bounces easily all over the place and things turn out to be great. Seldom I heard such crazy mixture of music as here. From endless guitar solo's, arab percussion and vocals, post rock textures, improvisation, jazz, field recordings and much more thrown into a blender to create an exotic cocktail that tastes great. Some of the tracks are a bit too long and go down in a bath of being too freaky, but throughout I thought this crazy amalgam of music is a great trip - around the world, and all of that in sixty-six minutes. That is great."-Vital Weekly