An excellent album of songs resurrecting Egyptian and Iraqi folklore by the Iraqi singer Ilham Al Midfai, was brought alive at Beirut’s Hard Rock Café.
Al Madfai continues with his project of modernizing tradition without losing its fundamental essence.
While electric bass guitar features gently in the background of many of the album songs, it is the Joza, a 3000 year old Iraqi instrument that takes pride of place. The Joza is a coconut split in two halves with a fingerboard made from an orange tree branch covered in fish skin with four keys tuned by keys giving an authentically ancient and romantic tone to the music.
The tabla is masterfully displayed, giving, along with long and melodic chorus lines, a rousing spirit to an album of unrequited love, yearning for beauty in the shadow of societies taboos and surreptitious liaisons.
The album includs:
1. Bint Al Shalabia (The Pretty Girl).
2. Ya Otholey (Do Not Reproach Me).
3. Ya Glaiba Sl We Thoob (My Heart Gets Weak).
4. Disaney Wa Arif Marami (Try To Understand My Aim).
5. Mali Chugul Bil Soug (I’ ve Got Nothing To Do In The Souq).
6. The ‘Chobbie’ (Desert Chobbie).
7. Khuttar (The Visitors).
8. El Rail Wa Hamad (The Railway and Hamad)—Albawaba.com
