Artist.......: Natacha Atlas & the Mazeeka Ensemble
Album........: Ana Hina
Label........: World Village
Genre........: Ethnic
Catnr........: 450005
source.......: CDDA
rip.date.....: Jul-20-2008
str.date.....: Jun-26-2008
quality......: VBR/44,1Hz/Joint-Stereo
Url..........: n/a
track title time
01. Ya Laure Hobouki 04:02
02. Beny Ou Benak Eih 04:12
03. Ana Hina 05:13
04. La Shou El Haki 03:19
05. Black is the Colour 04:07
06. La Teetab Alayi 03:21
07. La Vida Callada 05:04
08. Hayati Inta Reprise (Hayatak Ana) 06:26
09. El Asil 02:04
10. Lammebada 07:11
11. He Hesitated 04:19
12. El Nowm 05:49
Runtime 55:07 min
Size 65,7 MB
Release Notes:
Singer Natacha Atlas is now recording in London
rather than Cairo, but perversely this is her most
traditionally Arabic album, at least in terms of
its nostalgia. Working with musical director Harvey
Brough, she's chosen a classicist acoustic
approach, as opposed to her usual electronic
reinventions of Middle Eastern and North African
sounds.
Natacha's fluttering voice is very prominent in the
mix, allowing the space to savour every detail of
her ornamented phrasing. Around half of the songs
have a 1940s or 50s aura, sensitively interpreted
by an orchestra of serpentine strings, ney flute,
oud, percussion and a horn section that includes
Julian Siegel. The Egyptian star Gamal Al Kordy
makes a notable contribution on accordion; an apt
inclusion given his involvement in many of the
original recordings of these songs.
It's not all Arabic traditionalism, though. The
Atlas/Brough songwriting partnership has produced
four originals and a pair of arrangements, which
revisit ancient folk forms, both Western and
Eastern. Two of the originals possess strange
echoes of other songs, with the title track evoking
both Jacques Brel and James Brown's It's A Man's
World.
A reading of Black Is The Colour follows Nina
Simone's formula; just voice, piano and strings,
sung in English. There's also an eerie version of a
Frida Kahlo poem, in its original Spanish, sung as
a duo with baroque guitarist and oud player Clara
Sanabras, who this time opts for a pinging ukulele.
And then, Brough re-arranges Hayati Inta, taken
from the last Atlas album, driving all night down
the highway of doom.
El Asil, from the book of Egyptian singer Abdul
Halim Hafez, is followed by a lush arrangement of a
tune that's at least 500 years old, with an
exquisite ney/accordion conversation as its
introduction. Such diversity might sound excessive
in print, but the experience of gliding down these
wayward alleyways produces a seamless sensation of
high creativity, tastefully programmed. Ana Hina is
set to be one of the year's finest albums.