Abu Nawas Rhapsody

I won't add much to the reviews of this album as it has already been said, rather this is a comment on Dhafer in general. if you love real music away from the repetitive norm, and you are not afraid to explore new, beautiful and sometimes disturbing territory then there currently is no better musician (just check his back catalogue for the enviable list of collaborators). Abu Nawas Rhapsody is sublime. What are you waiting for?

Brilliant CD, the range of his vocals and the feeling, texture and energy of the compositions are truly breathtaking....and of course the band's playing is inspiring. A musical journey that lights all the senses. Iain, Edinburgh. When is he coming to Scotland.??

I just listened and it's a wonderful work.., full of sentiment and good music, transmit very good vibration and magic sound, I like it 😊

Brilliant - another great CD from Dhafer Youseff!

SUPER

Oke

Great sound

In terms of recording the musical trajectory of Dhafer Youssef started well, with Malak bringing together Renauld Garcia-Fons and Nguyen Le as support. Although it lacked an overall focus it did have moments of sublime intensity and the kind of lyricism we have come to expect from Dhafer Youssef. The second album Electric Sufi was possibly his real breakthrough. It cast Wolfgang Muthspiel and Marcus Stockhausen and will probably be seen as a minor masterpiece. It was then that Dhafer moved into new terrain. Digital Prophecy lined up Eivind Aarset, Bugge Wesseltoft and Nils Petter Molvaer and potentially could have become a nu-jazz classic but instead ended up sounding largely lite. Dhafer stripped back his groupings and produced another near classic Divine Shadows but again it seemed to drift in places. Glow came next and was a bit shambolic (nowhere near as good as the solo album Bright Side - which worked in a way Dhafer and Muthspiel didn't). A sidestep into tracks with Nguyen Le on Homescape had some amazing moments but again no overall unity of conception. And now Abu Nawas. It feels closer to Electric Sufi and Divine Shadows, in that it possesses an eccentric unity, a sense of totality and depth with the occasional jazz interlude. No ordinary song structures, lots of changes in tempi, in mood - yet, so far, works. My feeling is that Dhafer hasn't quite lived up to his potential. Unlike Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, who had a core repertoire, Dhafer only has his voice and oud - which haven't quite found their home. Yes, his voice works in an amazing range of settings but he needs to get back to some core tradition and then move out. Listen to Anouar Brahem's latest The Astounding Eyes of Rita to understand how you can work within a tradition and yet leap across cultures and create something truly marvelous. Dhafer started life as a boy Muezzin and sang within Sufi circles. He needs to find that within himself. I often feel his voice has a tendency to feel lost, like a profound fragment of a world that is singing in a wilderness. Like a thread torn out of a profound musical culture it seems to need more of the traditional context. If Dhafer is listening: why not do some cross- cultural work with Qawwali, another popular sufi form. It might just take his work to a higher level. Or do what Mich Mano did in The Cool Side of the Pillow , fuse traditional musical forms with contemporary. An Oud and Voice, on their own sound, to this listener at least, in desperate need of some presence of the traditional Islamic soil to truly bridge cultural and musical cultures.