Jinn

While it would be easy to make an album focusing on the similarities between guitar and oud, this debut album by Italian duo Jinn (Alberto NA Turra and Peppe Frana), revels in the differences between these two plectrum plucked instruments, with Frana playing the brittle Arabic oud while Turra investigates the myriad possibilities of the electric axe.

A dizzying range of moods are covered. ‘Trevor’, with its echo-drenched guitar and the oud holding down a gloomy bassline, could be a lost post-punk tune from 1982; while the traditional Turkish tune, ‘Ah Nice Bir Uyursun’, feels like a polyglot relative of The Doors’ ‘The End’, mixing gloomy Anatolian antiquity with a hint of paranoid surf guitar twang. Most astonishing, though, is the ten-minute opening number, ‘Prima Fiamma’. While Frana unfurls flamenco-like swirls and gnarled clusters on the oud, Turra unveils a panoply of techniques: sumptuous swells, backward burbles, crystalline harmonics, tightly controlled distortion, sudden feedback bursts, hanging clouds of drizzle and raw fret board shredding all fly by in a parade of virtuosity. It’s only when we hear the audience applaud after it ends that we realise the whole thing was a single take live performance. It’s as impressive as it is gripping.