mudd up!

Princess Music at 6919 5th Ave in Bay Ridge (Bay Ridge: R stop) is the best Arab music shop in Brooklyn. Don’t get me wrong: it’s not good. It simply happens to be the best, because the competition is even worse. Princess has some headless black Sambo/Aunt Jemima style ceramic figurines too, although they’re not for sale - they’re decoration.

Good thing Beur.Fm has internet streaming!

(Beur = verlan for ‘arabe’ ; verlan = we’ll eat this language from our side out)

Beur Fm is a powerful nationwide FM station in France with a satellite broadcast so family back the in the bled can listen in. They have 5 internet streams: the main station, 100% Maroc, 100% Rai, 100% Kabyle, 100% Orientale, and a new one called Ramadan.

Song and artist (metadata) info on all channels except 100% Maroc… That said, I can tell you that the song right now is by Jil Jilala… with Moulay Abdelaziz Tahiri on guembri. I recognized his stride immediately… so clear. This moment arrives bookmarked by music I can neither recognize nor remember // beauty dovetails drift, also the way smoke works, hope rolled up and burning. to know little. to listen.

My Own Private Alexandria. hours of listening, plus Paul Chan’s shapely metadata -

KEYWORDS: Philosophy, anti-philosophy, phalanx, food, build temporary buildings, difference between writing and idea, critics can go to hell, the coming future.

KEYWORDS: Art, thunder, noise against kids, hating kids, hating school, the awful effects of memory.

KEYWORDS: History of silent film, no such thing as silent film, shoot the piano player, fixing emotions, Benshi, love of Clara Bow, large faces, color as sex.

KEYWORDS: Cultural criticism, daily sense of history, New York Times as the most overrated newspaper on Earth, truth of our age in obituaries, institutions as sole grantor of legitimacy, progress as ideology.

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Folk Music SMB is a nice site for… oudcentricity.
lots of middle eastern/arabic albums with scanned liner notes!, including Gnawa Diffusion’s Bab El Oued Kingston (which several folks emailed me about after I posted the Radioclit sample-source tune from it).

we’re in the middle of Ramandan (”they” are in the middle of Ramadan), so - among many other things - it’s a decent time to catch Arabic music performances around the world. That’s the good news.

The bad news: many Arabic and “world music” events in New York City target an audience who can afford $40 tickets. For example: Damascus sufi Hamza Shakkur with the Al-Kindi ensemble and The Whirling Dervishes of Damascus, this Sunday, $37-42. Steep!

Here’s what we of the hungry wallets will be missing:

Hamza Shakkur - Al-Salam Al-Rabi (14.5 MB) [via]

Rahim al-Haj - Baghdad, New Mexico

On the CD’s back cover Bill Frisell says “I hope many people will have the chance to hear his new album, Home Again, made up of his own very personal compositions.” But despite the ominous signs, it’s not a bad album. Solo oud with plenty of strumming, downright banjoesque at times.

Forged endorsement is an interesting concept. Let’s save that for another post. Also, we’re starting a blog about ___ that will be bilingual, despite the fact i’m a lazy and unfaithful translator.

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Andy was the first person to ask me about the last song featured in Masala’s post, which I hadn’t recognized when I first heard it, Do You Think I’m Sexy version from Sonido’s Rebajadas mix. Since then a lot of people have asked.

Complexe et diversifiée, la méditerranée laisse entrevoir histoires communes et singularités, entre mémoires et enjeux d’avenir.

Oui!

Damien Tallard presents “Espadrille“, a streaming selection of North African music produced and issued on vinyl in Marseilles from 1950 through the 1970s.

Marseilles occupies a special place in my heart ever since i first stepped foot there (the view from the gare!). Partly because it is reminiscent of Barcelona with the horrible tourism aspects removed, partly because it is Maghrebi, partly because of the wonderful people I meet every time I go through, a unique fold in the map… Visiting there its difficult to recommend people specific places to go — Marseilles magic, for me, is non-obvious, not immediately visual, slow-moving and deep, in a sense it is like Madrid, another city capable of being user-unfriendly at first, which blossoms the more time you spend there.

big hugs to Amèlie @ Radio Grenouille in Marseilles for the tip, look for MuddUp! re-broadcasts there soon…

Tallard’s Espadrille post contains tantalizing info — a tangle of streets, a trio of labels, a distributor — that makes me want to learn more & some lovely, annotated album artwork scans.