Music from the Middle East & the Maghreb (Morocco), with: Dudu Tassa & The Kuwaitis | Arya Aramnejad | Al-Qasar.
1- Dudu Tassa & The Kuwaitis.
In the 1930s and 1940s, Saleh and Daoud Al-Kuwaity were big celebrities in the Arab world. They wrote big hits in Arabic and it was never a problem that the brothers were Jewish. Until after 1948, when anti-Jewish sentiments in Iraq became rampant and the brothers fled with their family to Israel. Once there, nobody seemed to be interested in their Arabic songs. That this story has not simply been forgotten is thanks to Dudu Tassa, a rock musician from Tel Aviv and grandson of Daoud Al-Kuwaity. He took the dusty songs of his grandfather and great-uncle out of the drawer and added some spice here and there with rock or electronic accents, or with quiet ballads with, for example, exceptionally good guest singers.
CD. El hajar – Dudu Tassa & The Kuwaitis. LABEL: Membran (2019), code: 270149. VIDEO
2- Arya Aramnejad.
A year in prison, tortured and humiliated in public for singing a protest song: it happened to Iranian pop singer Arya Aramnejad. In his famous song ‘Ali Barkhiz’ he criticizes the brutal violence of the police actions in 2009 during the Ashura protests in Iran, which resulted in his arrest as a threat to national security. He recorded the album ‘Touch Of Freedom’ in Stockholm, a collection of songs with English titles but sung in Farsi. It is an album filled with sultry, swinging Iranian pop and ballads, played on real instruments. The music is light and exotic in tone, yet at the same time combative and fun to listen to.
CD. Touch of Freedom – Arya Aramnejad. LABEL: Ajabu! Records (2021), code: AJABU035. VIDEO
3- Al-Qasar.
Parisian group Al-Qasar make it clear who they are with the first few notes on their album ‘Who are we?’: a pessimistic answer to the question, with a dark, humming sound and the same melody on the string instrument the oud. The band calls their music Arabian fuzz, which mixes elements of garage rock, psychedelic rock and Arabic pop. Band members of Sonic Youth and the Dead Kennedys appear as guest musicians. Al-Qasar is full of energy and knows how to translate psychedelic pop to an international context.
CD. Who are we? – Al-Qasar. LABEL: Glitterbeat Records (2022), code: GBCD130. VIDEO
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