middle eastern jams- can anyone help?

Cafe Society
1

OK, so I’m taking a Middle Eastern Dance class at UNLV. Yay, go me.

Anyhoo, I need music. Good music. I have several CD’s of “bellydance music”, which I nabbed at Tower Records, but, well, most of it doesn’t really inspire me to want to dance. It all makes for good listening, but out of the disks I’ve picked up, only one really makes me feel all dancy. Well, I suppose if I was into the Tribal Fusion scene, it would work better for me, but I’m just not the Tribal type.

Right now I’m listening to this radio station out of Kuwait on the 'net. Mostly Middle Eastern pop- much dancier, has more of a “flow” to it. Trouble is, a lot of it is too “pop”- overproduced, heavy on synthesizers… you know, Kuwaiti top-forty crap.

I like my music a little grungiier, edgier. When I was a kid. I like a lot of the late '60’s and early '70’s heavy rock and psychedlic music. More up to date (I tend to be behind the times musically, by the time I discover a band, they’ve already broken up, lead singer OD’d, whatever, because a few years back I quit listening to the radio after I became disgusted with what passes for music), I dig Blind Melon, Nirvana. When it comes to pure Western-style dance music, I tend to go with Billy Idol, INXS, or Duran Duran. I also dig funk- P-funk, Dee-Lite, stuff like that.

So, does anyone out there know of any good, grungy, edgey Middle Eastern musicians I can (warning, bad pun coming)
rocks sharqi to?
(OK, bad pun is over)

Preferably something I can pick up in the international section at Tower records- not crazy about ordering over the Internet, then having to wait for delivery.

2

um, or Borders… I’ll shop at Borders.

3

You might want to check out 3 Mustaphas 3.
I particularly like Soup Of The Century, although it doesn’t appear you can listen to it on towerrecords.com or Amazon. You can hear some of their other stuff though.

4

Anything by Natacha Atlas will fit the bill—Gedida, or Ayeshteni, or * Halim*.

Likewise, check out anything by Omar Faruk Tekbilek, for example Crescent Moon, or Mystical Garden, or Whirling.

Also recommended:

Ofra Haza—“Im Nin‘alu,” “Eshal,” and “Galbi,” from Shaday.

Yulduz Usmanova—“Jondiradi Kuydiradi” from Yulduz.

Sheila Chandra—especially “Raqs” from Nada Brahma, or “Roots and Wings” from Roots and Wings.

Axiom of Choice—“Chaos of Paradise” from Niya yesh.

A nice sampler of maybe the kind of music you asked for is Arabic Groove (from Putumayo Records; but this one is more funked up than the others).

“Rocks sharqi” — LOL, a neat pun. I get it.

(The Arabic phrase is raqs sharqi, ‘Oriental dance’. But you had something more “rock” in mind.)

5

Jomo, just by coincidence, after I got fed up waiting for someone to reply to this thread, I went to Borders and picked up Arabic Groove, along with Desert Roses and an album of really cool Egyptian drum music, which is making me feel very dancy right now, but I’m just too tired…

All I can say is, Natacha Atlas raqs, um, I mean, rocks.Well, she probably raqs, too, on her nights off. Does she have a greatest hits collection out? I already have Shaday, and the tunes you mentioned are the only good ones on the album. The rest of it sounds like (God help me) Sade. Yep, that annoyingly smooth coctail jazz sound.

6

Jomo Mojo mentioned Sheila Chandra, so you might also try to get Monsoon (featuring Sheila Chandra). It’s got a very strong 80’s pop influence, so it may not be what you’re looking for, but it’s a really great album all the same.

More pop-with-a-middle-eastern-influence is Songs from the Victorious City by Anne Dudley (of the Art of Noise) and Jaz Coleman (of the Killing Joke). Especially “Endless Festival.”