Featuring voice, electronics, buzuk and other instrumentation from composer-producer Radwan Ghazi Moumneh (Matana Roberts, Suuns, Big Brave) and complemented by the 16mm analog film work of Charles-André Coderre in live performance, JIMH continues to expand the horizons of its profound conceptual and aesthetic engagement with Arabic/Middle-Eastern traditions. Daqa’iq Tudaiq translates as “minutes that bother/oppress/harass” – which presumably needs no further explanation – and features two distinct album sides of music.
Side One realises a long-held dream of Moumneh’s to record a modern orchestral version of the popular Egyptian classic “Ya Garat Al Wadi” by the legendary composer Mohammad Abdel Wahab. JIMH assembled a 15-piece orchestra in Beirut, enlisting the celebrated Montréal-Cairo musician/composer Sam Shalabi (Land Of Kush) as arranger and musical director for the session. Anchored by the stately hypnotic pace of plucked and percussive instruments (riq, santur, derbakeh, kanun), the piece unfolds with lush, languid, reverb-drenched manoeuvrings through virtuosic Maqam shifts (Oriental scales). Moumneh’s melismatic lead vocals and electronic production sensibility pay homage to the genre’s documented historical recording traditions, while pushing things subtly and respectfully into new territories of sonic distortion and noised, artefact-laden transmission. The song’s original title (with lyrics penned in 1928 by the poet Ahmad Shawqi) translates as “Oh Neighbour Of The Valley”, but JIMH takes a different line from the original lyric as the new title for its orchestral-electronic re-interpretation. “Wa Ta’atalat Loughat Al Kalam” (“The Language Of Speech Has Broke Down”) is an expression of wordless love and transcendent communication between two lovers’ eyes in Shawqi’s poem; JIMH re-titles the song with this line, exploding the sentiment with more complexity, tragedy and socio-political meaning – also prefiguring the formal aesthetic ruptures JIMH bring to the piece itself. Love in a time of politics, politics in a world conspiring against love, and the specificity of Arab diasporic experience in our brutish 21st century.
Side Two comprises four tracks of non-ensemble “solo” material by Moumneh which push rupture and decomposition/recomposition of tradition further into avant-garde territory – voice, buzuk and electronics take the lead on a suite of emotive and evocative songs, including the percussive loop-driven instrumental “Bein Ithnein” (“Between Two” ) and the stunningly unsettling processed vocal track “Thahab, Mish Roujou’, Thahab” (“The Act Of Departing, Not Returning, Departing”).
Daqa’iq Tudaiq is a masterful, mesmerizing artistic statement and confirms Jerusalem In My Heart as one of the most engaged and forward-looking avant-Arabic projects at work in contemporary music today.
Release Date: 5 October 2018
FULL ALBUM INFO AND PREORDER LINK HERE
RIYL: Matar Mohammad, Pauline Oliveros, Nadah El Shazly, Lucrecia Dalt, Arca, Chino Amobi, Fatima Al Qadiri, Tacita Dean, Stan Brakhage
Autumn 2018 Tour Dates
Oct 04 – Ottawa, ON @ General Assembly
Oct 05 – Montreal, QC @ PHI Centre (record launch)
Oct 19 – Durbe, Latvia @ Zemlika Festival
Nov 08 – Utrecht, NL @ Le Guess Who
Nov 14 – Paris, FR @ Le Petit Bain
Nov 15 – London, UK @ Cafe Oto
CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR IF HE DIES, IF IF IF IF IF IF
(Constellation • CST114 • September 2015)
“If He Dies, If If If If If If is a stunning, of-the-moment record that speaks to the intersection of the personal and political with supreme confidence.” – AD-HOC
“The listener might expect such an unusual Arabic-electronic fusion to pose something of a challenge, but the album’s uncluttered arrangements, strong vocal melodies, and concision help make it eminently approachable.” – TEXTURA
#24 Album of 2015
THE QUIETUS
#39 Album of 2015
THE WIRE
Top Ten Rock, Post-Rock, Folk & Jazz Albums of 2015
A CLOSER LISTEN
Jerusalem In My Heart Official Site
Jerusalem In My Heart @ Constellation