First-time vinyl reissue of an essential Egyptian recording, a truly unique album in the Arabic music world for its fusion with Indian music. Baligh Hamdi shouldn’t sound unfamiliar to anybody who’s remotely interested in Arabic / Middle-Eastern music. File this one right next to the best recordings by Fairuz, Omar Khorshid or Elias Rahbani.
Unique fusion of the Indian and Egyptian music cultures devised by Baligh Hamdi, the most prominent of all modern composers in the Arab-speaking world. Hamdi, who penned dozens of hit compositions for Umm Kulthum, Abdel Halim Hafez, Warda and Sabah amongst others, also shaped the future of Arabic music in a way that’s difficult to overestimate.
Directed by Hamdi, the renowned Indian sitar player Magid Khan joins the Egyptian musicians of Abdel Halim Hafez’s orchestra in re-reading some of Hamdi’s compositions from a new perspective – here sitar and tabla dance together with arghoul, ney and other Arabic instruments.
An east-meets-east masterpiece in which Hamdi once again pushed the boundaries of Arabic music in his tireless quest for a broader, more global reach.