Sam Shalabi - "Eid"

Sam Shalabi - "Jessica Simpson" (Alien8 2008)

Sam Shalabi – Eid / Alien8

As the solo oud performance of “Hawaga” opens Eid – guitarist Sam Shalabi’s 3rd album as the main composer – the mood locks into your spine. It begins with tradition, Northern African folk music played as both a response and an escape from the sweltering heat and the mostly desolate landscape. The oud’s sound is one of loneliness and exhaustion; the body of the stringed instrument (a precursor to the western lute) creates a much more somber tone than that of the acoustic guitar. It doesn’t as much chime as sigh, and like most characteristics of Northern Africa and the Middle East, the larger resonating bowl creates much more complex tones than its western counterparts. Shalabi’s music, including that of his band The Shalabi Effect, has always been grounded in the ornate and solemn musical vibe of Northern African and Middle Eastern music. The tether is loose though, and it is exhaustively lifted into the hazy atmospheres of psychedelia, noise, avant-garde, post-rock and metal. Eid is no different, though perhaps a bit more restrained and concentrated. It is the music of being exposed to a number of cultures and the psychological effect of trying to coalesce the influences into one personal sound.

The ghostly vibe is not lost as the second track, curiously titled “Jessica Simpson”, takes over, but the notion that this is certainly not a Northern African folk record becomes concrete. Mixing an almost surf rock groove with Arabic(?) chants (provided by the haunting voice of Radwon Moumneh) and a simple, throbbing bass line akin to the furthest regions of late 60s psychedelia, Shalabi then unleashes a scathing guitar solo that crashes against your eardrums with waves of snarling cacophony. If it weren’t for the disturbing analog-tape scratching that lines the solo, you’d think you were listening to a Middle Eastern version of the Flower Travellin’ Band. And along those lines, comparisons to the recent Boris collaborations or contemporary Japanese psych bands like Ghost cannot be ignored either. In seven minutes, you take an aural trip through a barrage of cultures, eras and sentiments. I’m already content and there are still eight tracks left to go.

Shalabi conceived Eid while living in Cairo, Egypt in 2006. His original goal was to craft a “modern Arabic pop” record, but after being exposed to the fascinating and unbelievably large array of music from the region, the project, like all Shalabi-associated ventures, began to expand in a variety of directions. Bringing the blueprints of the album back to his eclectic home base of Montreal in early 2007, he was able to enlist a number of similar-minded artists to flesh out his exotic compositions. The result is a mult-textured, multi-cultured, multi-layered album of modern psychedelia. Obviously, we live in an increasingly inter-cultured society, and if a piece of music does not include influences from a multitude of cultures, I find it hard to classify it as “modern”. So though it may not sound so on the surface, perhaps Shalabi did fulfill his original goal.

Shalabi’s greatest tactic is without a doubt his ability to layer and build vertically without losing the song completely to unlistenable cacophony. But he also shows a great penchant for being able to counteract styles from song to song without completely disorienting the listener. While the title track is a sweltering and anxious residence in an Egyptian marketplace, where the ambient sounds coalesce into a nerve-racking exhibit of foreign displacement, the following cut, “Eddie”, relies on a simple, Ethiopian-derived saxophone riff and two-note piano patter. Granted the song does open up into moments of manic free improvisation and tempered guitar feedback, there still is a tangible hook to grasp.

Two of the most startling, and for that matter accessible, tracks are “Billy the Kid” and "Billy the Kid (Part 2)”; the former garnished with the aching, deep blues vocals of Constellation recording artist Elizabeth Anka Vajagic, and the latter laced with the more feminine and heavy hearted singing of Katie Moore. Both easily twist your emotions into braids of regret, despair and awe, but sidestep sentimentality by letting the song evolve into psychedlic rants of tape loops and noise byproduct. It's moody music because it's a reflection of tumultuous times and places.

Eid is a stunning record. Sam Shalabi continues his development into an increasingly matured and unpredictable songwriter displaying a talent to observe his surroundings, absorb the cultural nuances and produce a music that pushes such ascertainments into realms all their own. And in the same breath, Montreal’s Alien8 Recordings remains one of the most intriguing labels on the planet. This is a must for all experimental rock fans and those with ears begging for an adventure.