Singer Natacha Atlas is now recording in London rather than Cairo, but perversely this is her most traditionally Arabic album, at least in terms of its nostalgia. Working with musical director Harvey Brough, she's chosen a classicist acoustic approach, as opposed to her usual electronic reinventions of Middle Eastern and North African sounds.
Natacha's fluttering voice is very prominent in the mix, allowing the space to savour every detail of her ornamented phrasing. Around half of the songs have a 1940s or 50s aura, sensitively interpreted by an orchestra of serpentine strings, ney flute, oud, percussion and a horn section that includes Julian Siegel. The Egyptian star Gamal Al Kordy makes a notable contribution on accordion; an apt inclusion given his involvement in many of the original recordings of these songs.
It's not all Arabic traditionalism, though. The Atlas/Brough songwriting partnership has produced four originals and a pair of arrangements, which revisit ancient folk forms, both Western and Eastern. Two of the originals possess strange echoes of other songs, with the title track evoking both Jacques Brel and James Brown's It's A Man's World.
A reading of Black Is The Colour follows Nina Simone's formula; just voice, piano and strings, sung in English. There's also an eerie version of a Frida Kahlo poem, in its original Spanish, sung as a duo with baroque guitarist and oud player Clara Sanabras, who this time opts for a pinging ukulele. And then, Brough re-arranges Hayati Inta, taken from the last Atlas album, driving all night down the highway of doom.
El Asil, from the book of Egyptian singer Abdul Halim Hafez, is followed by a lush arrangement of a tune that's at least 500 years old, with an exquisite ney/accordion conversation as its introduction. Such diversity might sound excessive in print, but the experience of gliding down these wayward alleyways produces a seamless sensation of high creativity, tastefully programmed.
Ana Hina is the exciting, brand new direction for Middle Eastern music icon and singing sensation Natacha Atlas. Her début Acoustic project (and first album for the World Village label), finds Natacha exploring a more traditional roots world, again infusing Oriental and Western music but looking to the past to uncover a rich history of musical collaboration.
Working with top British musical director and arranger Harvey Brough, the band features outstanding musicians from around the globe and from different musical backgrounds: Clara Sanabras (Barcelona) oud and voice; Natacha’s cousin Aly el Minyawi (London via Cairo) percussion; Andy Hamill (Scotland) double bass; the great Gamil Awad (a star in Egypt who played on some of this repertoire the first time around) on accordion, soloing in the Nubian style; with Arabic soloists embellishing the tight harmonies of a western string section, this performance spans the centuries and crosses continents from the West to the East and back again. In the specially created arrangements, locked in the embrace of this exciting band, Atlas's voice is heard as never before, a priceless jewel in a rich and eclectic setting.
Peace
