Oriental Disco & Acid Arab (2012)

01 - the g*slamp killer - n*ssim (ft. amir yaghmai)

02 - adil el miloudi - track 2 (dj su-real club mix)

03 - ali hussan kuban - hanwil tanza (izzywise remix)

04 - ahmed fakroun - nisyan

05 - paris casablanca - dancing in cairo (dr. dread edit)

06 - senay - honki ponki

07 - figen han - pisi pisi

08 - senay - dalkavuk

09 - elias rahbani and his orchestra - liza... liza

10 - bebi dol - mustafa

11 - ahmed fakroun - love words

12 - badawi - final warning

13 - kai warner's oriental express - fly butterfly

14 - john berberian & rock east ensemble - iron maiden

15 - ouiness - zina (128 bitrate rip from soundcloud)

16 - orient express - abdullah's wedding

17 - sahara band – habibi

If you enjoyed Oriental Discotheque - Disco Not Disco (2012) from a few months ago - here is more for you! ''Oriental Disco & Acid Arab (2012)'': Oriental & Arab Disco, Disco Not Disco, No Wave, Leftfield, Edit, Balearic, Pop-Boogie-Electro, Cosmic & Italo Disco with an Oriental Theme...

Mister Guido Minisky, DJ, artistic director at the Chez Moune Club (Paris), responsible for the great Kid Creole compilation Going Places - The August Darnell Years 1974-1982 & most importantly ACID ARAB frontman, probably gave a better name to this musical movement - calling it ACID ARAB: ''The idea is to give a name to this musical movement, and to present ourselves not as "know-it-all geeks" but as 2 djs playing house & oriental music...'' For more info please visit & join ACID ARAB on facebook here and here. Lots of info & music shared there, tune recommendations via youtube, mixes & more... And its growing! Finally the ''Acid Arab Genie Is Out of the Bottle'' - sharing all those magic! Also check out the Acid Arab soundcloud page.

I am starting this compilation with Nissim from The Gaslamp Killer. "Nissim" a song named after Gaslamp's late grandfather, who grew up in Istanbul, is a richly arranged Turkish soul groove with a break-beat bounce to it and a special catch: every instrument on it was played live. Here's Gaslamp with a few words: "I was listening to this old Turkish song over and over, and I said to myself, 'Lord, this is too good. I don't wanna just loop it like I used to. I should get with some musicians and recreate this. ' So I got (producer) Daedelus on bass, and Amir Yaghmai from Jogger on guitar and yiali tambur, and we just jammed. It sounded so good that Amir offered to bring in some Middle Eastern professionals he knew, and then they redid it while I sat in and directed the band." Track #2 is DJ Su-Real's Club Mix of an amazing tune by Tangiers phenomenon Adil El Miloudi who performs a contemporary version of traditional Moroccan music. This is what DJ Su-Real himself says about the original and his remix: ''I love the searing female vocals that enter in the second verse, and the sauntering rhythm is entrancing (...) I stuck a simple little 4×4 under the track and just let it ride, and now its ready to burn up the dancefloor…'' Read more about Adil El Miloudi here. Track #4 is Nisyan by Ahmed Fakroun, who was already featured twice on the first Oriental Discotheque compilation here on the blog. Ahmed Fakroun, born in Lybia, is an arabian disco and electro pioneer. In the 70's and 80's he spend a lot of time in England, France and Italy. ''According to Wikipedia, this song was arranged by Nicolas Vangelis (?) and Ahmed Fakroun, and recorded in Italy. I especially love the vocals on the second verse. Ahmed is breaking off lots more mp3s for your enjoyment over here. Also make the voyage to ahmedfakroun.com.'' (Art Decade) Track #5 is Paris Casablanca - Dancing In Cairo (dr. dread edit) - a superbly bizarre and little-known French disco production. The title track ''Dancing In Cairo'' is the most appealing to my ears. The lyrics start "Dancing in Cairo, Everywhere you go, Heavy perfume flows, In Cairo...". After 2 minutes the disco tune blends into a syncopated flute-driven middle-eastern sound, and then back out into an alto-sax solo, before returning to the main tune... For me the best part of the song is that 30 seconds of 'syncopated flute-driven middle-eastern sound' - anyone out there who could deliver a proper edit/extended version of that 30 seconds?! Track #6 is the Turkish disco delight Honki Ponki by Turkish singer and actress Senay. Taken from here 1980 album of the same name. There is also a funk’ed up version by edit master Baris K available. Track #7 Figen Han - Pisi Pisi is another great song from Turkey - a dirty, funky slow Disco groover with nice instrumentation & lots of moans. Not much more info available on this song - unless you can read Turkish. Track #8 is Dalkavuk by Senay - another good track from her above mentioned album. Real nice jam, mad synthesizers, the drummer's minimal sleeze style in perfect harmony with her vocal stylings. Google translate defines "dalkavuk" as "syncophant"... Track #9 - Liza...Liza by Elias Rahbani and his Orchestra takes you on an almost 8 minute Lebanese disco ride with lots fuzz. Wild! Track #10 is what ACID ARAB is all about - taking our love for the Orient in all its various form on to the dancefloor. Mustafa is a phenomenal 1981 track by Serbian Bebi Dol from former Yugoslavia. Almost industrial, raw 4AD-esque production, with some On-U Sound Dub influences, exotic or even oriental melodies, astonishing female vocal performances and whatever else the 1980's communism block was hidding. Very unique track. Read more here. Track #11 is yet another song by Ahmed Fakroun. Love Words + Soleil Soleil are my favourite two songs from his 1983 release Mots D'amour, a great record filled with oriental disco and electro. Track #12 Final Warning by Badawi is as ACID as ACID ARAB can get. Raz Mesinai's (aka Badawi) is an experimental music alchemist along the same lines as Muslimgauze (whom I unfortunately have neglected to give a proper listen yet). His music is usually highly rhythmic with a particular keen sense of microtonal sound - and a lot of middle eastern influences. He released his first album in 1994 as a 20 year old. Since then he has released almost 20 albums, EP's & 12inches under various pseudonyms, his last in 2011 under his moniker Badawi called Index ¹⁻² No Schnitzel. The next song - track #13 - Fly Butterfly, is some exotic slo mo funky disco courtesy of Kai Warner's Oriental Express. Originally released in 1976 on a Phillips 7inch. Thanks to Psychemagik for sharing this beauty on his blog (well worth checking out if you are looking for more ''Musical Treasures from The Cosmic Forest''). Track #14 Iron Maiden by John Berberian & His Rock East Ensemble has been a favourite of mine since I bought the original long-player Middle Eastern Rock (1969) as a teenager. John Berberian is an American-Armenian oud player who pioneered fusions of middle eastern music with modern psychedelic rock in the 1960's. The song "Iron Maiden" is an adaptation of another Armenian-American oudist by the name of Chick Ganimian's piece Welcome to the Casbah. Go here and here to read more on John Berberian. Mister Guido Minisky from ACID ARAB introduced me to track #15 - Ouiness – Zina on his soundcloud a while ago. Not much info available on this song from 1979, except that Ouiness probably was from Morocco. According to Radio Diffusion he apparently won a Special Mention at a International music competition in Paris. This is what Guido Minisky himself is saying about this song: ''What if Talking Heads were from Morocco? They would have recorded this song for their first album in 1977''. Yes! And we would probably have a great edit of this song by Greg Wilson in the tradition of his edit of Psycho Killer by the Talking Heads. Classic material! (The 'Ouiness - Zina' song unfortunately is only a 128 bitrate rip from soundcloud). Track #16 is Abdullah's Wedding by Orient Express. Taken from their 1978 album A Desert Fantasy, "Abdullah's wedding" is some proper Oriental/Arab Disco with catchy vocals, a wailing chorus, percussion - and the lyrics are supposedly also very funny. Early on in the song, the lyrics are: "Will you marry Abdullah, tell me my dear..." Eventually towards the end of the song, we finally get a reply: "Don't want Abdullah, I found another, I like his father better than him!" I am ending this compilation with track #17 Habibi by the Sahara Band, a 1983 Italo Disco song with some oriental influence, a catchy melody and some beautiful female vocals - which I don't understand a bit - but find really beautiful: sweeter than sugar! Also make sure to check out the instrumental Samba version of Habibi. Now let's go ACID ARAB...

Enjoy! DubMe

Oriental Discotheque - Disco Not Disco (2012)

01 - ahmed fakroun - njoom al leyel

02 - tanya - darladi ladada version

03 - antares - arabian dance

04 - orient express - abdullah dollar (jean pierre massiera '83)

05 - les mogol - madimak

06 - baris manco - aheste (baris k edit)

07 - rachid taha - agatha

08 - djamel allam - edit d'algerie (julian horn)

09 - bjork - crystalline (omar souleyman remix)

10 - elias rahbani - dance of maria

11 - abdul hassan orchestra - disco arab

12 - ait mislayene - el fen

13 - ahmed fakroun - yo son (prince language edit 'soleil soleil')

14 - raina rai - hagda

15 - les edits du golem - sumak

I have always liked the various forms of oriental music from the Middle East. Listening to my father playing some Mohammed Abdel Wahab (check out the classic Abdel Halim Hafez song Ya Albi Ya Khali produced by him) or Farid El Atrache tapes as a child was always deep and fazinating stuff! And the record covers of some of his Belly Dancing albums never seemed to disappoint. In recent years, whenever listening to some oriental music, I found myself mostly listening to music from Nickodemus, Zeb, The Spy From Cairo, Rachid Taha, Natacha Atlas - music which sometimes is summarized/described as global grooves (whatever that means) - music shared on many great Putumayo, Rough Guide to... or Turntables on the Hudson compilations and mixes. Today's compilation is a little different. Kind of Oriental Disco, Disco Not Disco, No Wave, Leftfield, Edit, Balearic, Italo Disco with an oriental theme, Pop-Boogie-Electro, Cosmic... I have always collected "oriental" songs which fit the above mentioned description. One of the first songs for this compilation might have been track #7, Agatha by Rachid Taha. Found it one a nice Balearic mix, whose name I have forgotten. Another early favourite is track# 10, Dance Of Maria by Lebanese musician and composer Elias Rahbani. What a stand out track with great drum breaks, killer organ, flutes... Too beautiful not to cry! Taken from his 1972 album "Mosaic of the Orient". Let me share what Little Danny, who is responsible for the great Officenaps blog, writes on soul sides - he did a great job describing the surroundings of the song: "In 1972 you’d still come across references to Beirut as "The Paris of the Middle East" in current issues of National Geographic; the city was, after all, the region’s nerve center of television, cinema, and radio. And Lebanese pop wunderkind Elias Rahbani was squarely in the middle of it all. His "Song of Maria" works precisely because of its cosmopolitan soul: it’s Eastern melody with Western circuitry, experimentalism with a sense of pop humor, and it’s crammed with flowing Farfisa organ lines, electric bass, keyboards that aren’t mizmars but sound exactly like them, bouzoukis, guitars, and even a few choice moments for you breakbeat aficionados. But, then again, this was 1972, a ravaging decade and a half of civil war was still a few years away, and, as far as Rahbani was concerned, there was room for all of it inside the pleasure dome.“ Read the rest here. The song that really got this compilation rollin' was track #13, the Prince Language killer edit of Libyan singer Ahmed Fakroun's 1983 hit "Soleil Soleil". Find the original here. John Storm Roberts, of Original Music, wrote that "among rai singers, the pop-oriented Ahmed Fakroun stands out on two grounds. First, he is influenced by Euro-pop and French art-rock (...) Second, he's a multi-instrumentalist in both traditions as well as a singer. He plays bouzouki-like saz, mandol and darbouka drum, as well as guitar, bass guitar and keyboards." This is what the jonosaudio blog had to say about Ahmed Fakroun, far the best introduction to this fine musicians I found on the blogsphere: "Multiinstrumentalist Ahmed Fakroun musical career started already in the early 1970's after which he had several lenghty recording and performance sejours in England and France. (In 1974 he recorded "Njoom Al Leyel", which is the first song featured on this compilation. Produced in England by famous BBC Radio producer Tommy Vance in 1974, it features some funky flute workouts over a deep groove. In 1977 he worked together with famous Greek composer and artist Vangelis resulting in the track "Nisyan". Listen to the Les Edits Du Golem edit of the same song on youtube.) In 1983 his Mots D'Amour album was released including the hit single Soleil Soleil to make his mark in world music circles, combining traditional Arab instruments and melodies with modern electronic music and dance rhythms. But then came the US aerial bombing of Libya in April 1986, followed by years of international sanctions and isolation, ...(which) seriously impeded its citizens' freedom of movement and Fakroun's international career plans were effectively put on ice." Here is another lengthy article about Ahmed Fakroun from the BBC website - well worth reading. If you want to further explore Fakroun's musical works, check out his website. Some of his original recordings can legally be downloaded through CD Baby here and here. Track #8 is another song I would like to mention. A brilliant edit of Djamel Allam's Fatiha from his 1974 album "Laissez Moi Rancorter" by Julian Horn. Julian Horn aka. Giulio DJ started his career DJ'ing in Vienna around ten years ago, bringing his love for authentic disco, balearic beats and cosmic leftfield sounds to the plates of many locals. Check out some of his music released on Is it Balearic...? and Elevator People. And don't forget to give this amazing song and video on youtube a listen. Pure feel-good-music! Educated as a sound engineer in London, Giulio's musical visions mostly expand on the themes of balearic disco, fusion jazz, and prog rock. I hope he will soon share another magical edit of a north african, arabic, oriental delicacy! I would have loved to include the 1978 song Do You Love Me by the Bendaly Family from Lebanon on this compilation, but I couldn't find a copy of it anywhere. So, you gotta watch the youtube version right here:

Amazing raw footage that leaves me jaw dropping stunned every time I watch it. And happy! For sure my favourite musical family out there - together with the Jackson 5... Doyo love me? Doyo Doyo...

Enjoy! DubMe

PS: This compilation fits perfectly on one CD - just click "NO PAUSE BETWEEN TRACKS" when you are going to burn it - and the CD will be exactly 79:59 minutes long...