(2021) VA – Nahma: A Gulf Polyphony  


Review:
The project Nahma: A Gulf Polyphony consists of a double album and book. Several electronic artists were commissioned to create new tracks using original field recordings of pearl fishers’ from the Persian Gulf, from the collections of the renowned ethnomusicologist and composer Poul Rovsing Olsen. In ‘Zumayyah’, French artist Joakim adds drum patterns to loops of chant and the sound of sea waves. In ‘Vaguement (Haddadi)’ Naples-based Alan Strani puts church organ chords under the original track, creating a fascinating counterpoint tension, which in fact highlights the Gregorian chant-like melodies of the original. Jazz-pianist Tarek Yamani turns the song ‘Hilal’ into a funk-like drone with reminiscences of Hello Psychaleppo or Maurice Louca, a different approach from his usual techniques linking Gulf rhythms to Latin-jazz-style piano playing. The most impressive track for me is ‘Sitt-il Muhanna’ by Egyptian performance artist Aya Metwalli, who respectfully unearths the haunting tensions in the original by enveloping them inside layers of electronic loops in contrasting keys. Quite dissonant is ‘Schein Davon’ by Austrian Conny Frischauf, who just adds some vague singing and piano chords to a vaguely sounding derivate of a rhythm track. It is superfluous and almost an insult to the original culture. Another major let-down is the absence of more detailed information about Rovsing Olsen’s recordings, four of which are included in their original state. No information on where, when and with which musicians they were made. The book contains an essay about the stories behind some pearl diver chants by Lebanese musicologist Toufic Kerbage, an interview from 1978 with a former Kuwaiti pearl diver, an article by Bahraini musician and visual artist Hasan Hujairi about how he got to feel more and more estranged from his roots and a general history of pearl diving.





Track Listing:
01. Tomaga - Dub Divers 03:32
02. Ypy - ZZMMYYHH 05:10
03. Hieroglyphic Being - Kuzaliwa Upya 08:10
04. Tarek Yamani - Hilal 04:21
05. Alan Strani - Vaguement (Haddadi) 04:40
06. Ben Bertrand - And the Ashes of Our Burning Souls Will Fly Away 04:22
07. Conny Frischauf - Schein Davon 04:20
08. Aya Metwalli - Sitt-Il Muhanna 05:55
09. Poul Rovsing Olsen - Zumayyah (Joakim Remix) 06:23
10. Tomaga - Any Further Trade 04:44
11. Poul Rovsing Olsen - Yā Mal (Midaf) 06:20
12. Poul Rovsing Olsen - Zumayyah 06:10
13.  Poul Rovsing Olsen - Haddadi 09:22
14. Poul Rovsing Olsen - Bahrï 17:05


Media Report:
Genre: electronic, world
Country: Various
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits