November 08, 2019
(Constellation)Sam Shalabi’s ambitious project offers up a heady mix of free jazz, Arabic classical, postpunk and panglobal folk music
Land of Kush: Sand Enigma review – the disorientating sound of Egypt
Sam Shalabi is a composer, guitarist and oud player who makes Arabic classical music, provocative postpunk, squally free jazz and panglobal folk music – all at once. Cleverly, however, he manages to glue these genres together in such a way that the final result doesn’t resemble any of them. Born in Libya to Egyptian parents, Shalabi was five when his family moved to Canada and he has been a leading light in Montreal’s alternative music scene since the 1980s, leading punk, electronica and bebop bands with names like Swamp Circuit, the Dwarfs of East Agouza, Nutsak, Moose Terrific and Detention.
Land of Kush is his most ambitious project, featuring around 20 members in its various iterations. The last Land of Kush album came out in 2013, its heady optimism inspired by the Arab Spring, and Shalabi has spent much of the last six years living in Cairo. Sand Enigma seems to reflect the confusion and dislocation of latterday Egypt: a santur solo is interrupted by dramatic string stabs and arrhythmic baritone sax squalls; a cello freakout coalesces into a stately Arabic love song; an ecstatic free jazz duet for tenor sax and wordless vocals mutates into a delicate flamenco ballad.
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