Konceptualna distorzija tradicionalne i rane psihodelične arapske muzike.
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this revisiting is through distorted paths & instruments, remashed & deconstructed sounds, recreating patterns with diverse instruments to give a different perspective of the sound itself. includes musicians from upperground piero bittolo bon & tommaso cappellato. “eastern twang, middle eastern thematics & jazz all play a role in albidaya, as do tribal drums & marketplace noise with the introduction of live & off the cuff synth experiments, arpeggiated space transmissions & eerie wu-tang like vocal samples entrapped in a gurgling soup of analogue beef" - rory gibb, wire
**A killer set from Morphosis, a must for fans of Sun Ra, Dariush Dolat-Shahi, Alice Coltrane** Exploratory Lebanese imprint Annihaya presents a stunning debut album opus by Rabih Beaini (aka Morphosis) under his birth name. As Rabih was born in Lebanon (but now based in Berlin and with strong ties to Venice, Italy) it is fitting he shares 'Albidaya' - meaning "The Beginning" in Arabic - with a label from his home country, who provide acute context for its mixture of electronics, psych rock, folk and jazz with their previous releases from Raed Yassin and noted Arab-o-philes, Sun City Girls. Impressively it was mostly recorded over the course of one day in 2012, wrangling myriad rhythms, tones and shapes from Rabih's famous collection of vintage analog synthesizers and sequencers meshed with Eko Tiger Duo organ and guitar, and some assistance from Tommaso Cappellato on drums and Piero Bittolo Bon on woodwind and electronics (with additional credits to both Mike Huckaby and Donato Dozzy), and post-production done in Berlin and Rome. And most importantly, it's a resounding success, articulating a worldly vision of electronic and instrumental musics thru the prism of his oft-quoted Sun Ra and Alice Coltrane inspirations, whilst comparable with the para-dimensional, modular microtones of Dariush Dolat-Shahi's incredible Smithsonian Folkways issue or even the mystic practice of Gurdjieff. For techno heads familiar with Rabih's Ra.H or Morphosis material but unsure what to expect, we urge you to dive in head-first and dry off later; for the jazz, world and electronic connoisseurs, it's a total peach. Strongly recommended! - boomkat
Rabih Beaini will release a folkloric LP entitled Albidaya on Lebanese label Annihaya.
Launched in 2009 by Raed Yassin, Sharif Sehnaoui and Hatem Imam, Annihaya is a conceptual music label specialising in what it calls “deconstruction and ‘recycling’ of popular” musical cultures. The Albidaya LP is the label’s sixth album release, which sees Beaini credit his own name to the work as opposed to the more commonly used Ra.H or Morphosis, something seldom seen in his ten-plus years of releasing music.
Beaini distances the sounds on Albidaya from his work as Ra.H or Morphosis, but the album does wander into stylings of a similar instrumental plane to his four person musical ensemble project Upperground Orchestra. Field recordings also seemingly play an important role on the album, as they did with his last album What Have We Learned, released in 2011 on his own Morphine Records.
The eight-track LP dips into the ethnically charged concepts and neo-traditionalisms of Annihaya, traversing through a panorama of sounds and textures. Eastern twang, middle eastern thematics and jazz all play a role in Albidaya, as do tribals drums and marketplace noise with the introduction of live and off the cuff synth experiments, arpeggiated space transmissions and eerie Wu-Tang like vocal samples entrapped in a gurgling soup of analogue beef. Brief clips of the entire album are available to stream below should the preceding description not provide sufficient appetite whetting.
The forthcoming album represents the first original material from Rabih Beaini to surface in 2013, though his Morphine Records has maintained the imperious momentum built up last year with some great 12″s of sludgy, experimental techno from Metasplice and Container. The artist responsible for the latter’s Treatment EP, Beaini’s Lebanese compatriot Maria Kassab, has also contributed to the quite striking cover art for Albidaya.
Annihaya will release Albidaya by Rabih Beani on limited CD and LP formats later this month.
Morphosis, What Have We Learned
On What Have We Learned, Lebanese producer Rabih Beaini is presented with the same dilemma that every other electronic music artist with lofty intentions faces – namely how his music can make the successful transition to a long-player format. Unlike most of his peers however, Beaini manages to imbue What Have We Learned with a common narrative, despite flirting with a range of tempos and arrangements. That unifying bond is a sombre, atmospheric mood. It’s tempting to posit that Beaini was influenced by his residency in Venice – but many of his previous releases have also had a similarly somnambulant quality.
Irrespective of its origins, this gloominess is audible on the opener, “Silent Screamer”, where a resonating bassline underpins an arrangement that skirts loosely around the edges of conventional house music. It also plays a central role on “Too Far”. Featuring freaked out Gothic vocals and tumbling keys, its grungy, primal rhythm makes the connection between modern techno grime and industrial gloom. “Dirty Matter” and “Gates of Night” tell similar tales; the former’s cacophony of foreboding drums and the latter’s hypnotic gamelan-style percussion suggest that Beaini is somehow in tune with a netherworld that his peers are not party to.
Despite this, What Have We Learned isn’t a depressing or demanding listen and although his music is pitched at the outer limits of dancefloor centric electronic music, its ethereal tendencies will draw listeners in rather than repelling them. If you remain unconvinced, check out “Wild In Captivity”, which pushes murky, throbbing rhythms into an irresistible dreamlike state. - Richard Brophy
Morphosis told us last month that's he's on a never-ending quest to "free" his loops. He pointed out that techno is a genre enslaved to the sequencer; the challenge for him is to emancipate his music from quantization. Two Morphosis releases through M>O>S these past two years have gone some way to achieving this through their own free flowing yet club-indebted manner. What Have We Learned advances on this goal markedly—to the point at which this debut album, co-released by his own Morphine Records and Dutch label Delsin, is likely to be the most unfettered techno full-length you'll hear this year.
It couldn't have sounded any other way, though, if we are to heed Morphosis' assertion that What Have We Learned was composed in two days (with two days beforehand to plug in all his gear). A small cluster of instruments appear on each of the ten tracks. The compositions hinge on each having enough headroom to clearly tell its own story. Synths are unhinged and buzzing, their filters unraveling into the many vacant spaces in the frequency range. Likewise, hi-hats and percussion are heavily affected by distortion and modulation without fear of encroachment upon other elements. Around half the pieces are tethered to the inexorable thump of a kick—which in themselves are a point of note with their earthy analog tones—while the other 50% ease through wistful pads and crunchy broken-beats. Techno is the tone, but experimentation is the theme.
Electronic music producers often talk-up "jam sessions" and "happy accidents" only for the end result to seemingly belie such a claim. On What Have We Learned it isn't even necessary to dig for such things. Listen to the opening bars of "Kawn" for instance: An ominous four-note riff is thumbed in over skittering hats, with Morphosis frequently missing his key or fluffing his delivery. This is very evidently "one take" stuff. And as such, the passage of bars becomes irrelevant; the expectation for something new to happen every 32 beats recedes, which in turn allows you to ease into a journey.
That's not to say What Have We Learned could be termed easy-listening. A machine-like intensity in the vein of Sandwell District pervades the record—"Wild in Captivity" and "Spiral" being the most striking examples—which is humanized on occasion by sharp turns from female vocalist Kae—"Too Far" and "Europa." Even during moments of delicacy—the pitter-patter percussion of "Gate of the Night"—a tenebrous mist swirls overhead. For all its dark energy, though, What Have We Learned is just as striking for the manner of its execution—you can almost sense Morphosis' fingers quivering over his synths as you urge him to make even more "mistakes." - Ryan Keeling
It couldn't have sounded any other way, though, if we are to heed Morphosis' assertion that What Have We Learned was composed in two days (with two days beforehand to plug in all his gear). A small cluster of instruments appear on each of the ten tracks. The compositions hinge on each having enough headroom to clearly tell its own story. Synths are unhinged and buzzing, their filters unraveling into the many vacant spaces in the frequency range. Likewise, hi-hats and percussion are heavily affected by distortion and modulation without fear of encroachment upon other elements. Around half the pieces are tethered to the inexorable thump of a kick—which in themselves are a point of note with their earthy analog tones—while the other 50% ease through wistful pads and crunchy broken-beats. Techno is the tone, but experimentation is the theme.
Electronic music producers often talk-up "jam sessions" and "happy accidents" only for the end result to seemingly belie such a claim. On What Have We Learned it isn't even necessary to dig for such things. Listen to the opening bars of "Kawn" for instance: An ominous four-note riff is thumbed in over skittering hats, with Morphosis frequently missing his key or fluffing his delivery. This is very evidently "one take" stuff. And as such, the passage of bars becomes irrelevant; the expectation for something new to happen every 32 beats recedes, which in turn allows you to ease into a journey.
That's not to say What Have We Learned could be termed easy-listening. A machine-like intensity in the vein of Sandwell District pervades the record—"Wild in Captivity" and "Spiral" being the most striking examples—which is humanized on occasion by sharp turns from female vocalist Kae—"Too Far" and "Europa." Even during moments of delicacy—the pitter-patter percussion of "Gate of the Night"—a tenebrous mist swirls overhead. For all its dark energy, though, What Have We Learned is just as striking for the manner of its execution—you can almost sense Morphosis' fingers quivering over his synths as you urge him to make even more "mistakes." - Ryan Keeling
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