Andalusia of Love

I thought I had become a bit tired of Marcel Khalife's musical activities. Popular as ever throughout the Arab world, the veteran innovator of Arab music's concerts had increasingly become a singalong of standards. Meanwhile, however, his sons Rami (piano) and Bachar (percussion), whom he often brought along on stage, have gone solo, each exploring new musical terrains. Now the sons unite with the father, and along with qanun (zither) player Jilbert Yamine and Khalife's own oud give the music a drastically new direction.

There is a lot of attention paid to the interaction of the instruments, turning whole sections into wondrous soundscapes. Under the influence of the new setting Khalife's vocal lines steer away from household predictability on excellent pieces like ‘Nassiti’ and ‘Ya Habibi’ and true highlights ‘Maraya’ and ‘Achtahiki’. Khalife, himself from Lebanon, has a long history in setting music to texts by the legendary Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, who passed away in 2008. The album is named after a poem looking back to the period of Andalusian culture when Spain was under Muslim rule, during which arts and science flourished and when (at least for a part of the time) Islam, Christianity and Judaism were in harmony. Based on this, Khalife aimed to evoke a new bright era for the Middle East, and something of that spirit is reflected on the music of this album. Or perhaps it was simply that the time had just come for Khalife to record a good new album.