In the Mood for the Nouba

For serious students of North African music and aficionados of the rarified and demanding canon of Arab– Andalus poetic tradition, this is an unmissable album. A top-flight instrumental ensemble of lutes, zithers, violas, flutes and hand-drums is fronted by one of the most important modern vocal practitioners of the genre. Unusually for this male– dominated sphere, it's a female one.

Many uninitiated listeners may feel the title's mood for the nouba is a difficult one to get into, as the long, drawn-out archaic laments for the anguish of love engendered by this or that enchanting gazelle have little modern resonance. Heresy it may be, but after a couple of hours of stanzas of ‘Ah! If only women were just! I am enamoured of the Sultan’, ‘My companion, prepare a goblet of wine’ and the like, one ends up empathising most with the lyric of the final verse: ‘I am losing patience’.