Another expert compilation, featuring some of his early English recordings — like Run A Way (nice try) and Flower Of Love — alongside smashes like Sari Çizmeli Mehmet Aga and Aynali Kemer, with a sprinkling of instrumental gems from his 70s concept albums.

‘Wildly adventurous music from Cairo. Hypnotic polyrhythms pulsate within a richly acoustic sound-world. Custom-made, microtonal guitars explore nuanced phrasings, and Louca’s languid interplay with violin, synthesizer, and other instruments creates passages of vivid beauty.
‘Featuring violinist Ayman Asfour, percussionist and drummer Khaled Yassine, double bassist Rosa Brunello, multi-instrumentalist Nancy Mounir (playing violin and theremin on El Taalab), and oud virtuoso Hazem Shaheen on Sahar, Fera is some of the most composed and thoughtfully-crafted music Louca has ever made, but of course it’s guided by the dynamic experimentation and collaborative spark that have become central to his work.’

Stunning piano improvisations — mostly solo, though peppered with tombak, violin, and scraps of poetry — using his own tuning system, recorded for Iranian national radio between 1956-1965.

Hypnotic variations of the compositions of the legendary Mohamed Abdel Wahab, on early electronic keyboards like the Steelphon S900 and the Farfisa, cut with El Shariyi’s hip, whizzy jazz and pop stylings. Ana Wa Habibi is here; and the classic Ahwak, made famous by Abdel Halim Hafez and Fairuz. Originally released by Soutelphan in 1976.

Forgotten masterpieces, out-of-this-world improvisations from the 1920s; and dazzling commissions by Sir Richard Bishop, Six Organs Of Admittance and co. ‘Dextrous, frenzied, fearless… awesome’ (Plan B).

The greatest singer of his generation presenting the classical music of Azerbaijan, accompanied on the tar lute and the kamancha viol by the Mansurov brothers.

A thought-provoking, deeply enjoyable consideration of displacement and dislocation, and abiding but adaptive cultural memory, this fourth collaboration mashes expert, haunting samples of the classical Iranian pop of greats like Andy, Hayedeh, and Fereydoun Farrokhzad into tough, quick-fire beat-downs.

Fine singing and oud-playing, with zither and violin, and the percussion which characterises the hejaz style — nasgar and naqrazan, darbuka and tar, both held at the same time in the left hand, struck by the right.

The magic moments of Sharam Shabpareh, front-man of Iranian garage legends The Rebels. ‘Blurting horns, evil bass grooves, cheesy organs, a thick strata of percussion going off like microwave popcorn.’

Swaying, haunting tangos from Turkey, from the twenties to the fifties, drenched in tears and booze, regret and recrimination.

Stunningly beautiful, poignant music from Bilād al-Shām — ‘the countries of Damascus’, known nowadays as Syria, Lebanon and Palestine — including performances from the very first recording sessions in the region.
The legendary, moody Beirut singer Būlus Ṣulbān is here — some historians have him singing before Egypt’s Pasha Ibrāhīm Bāshā during his military campaign in Syria, in 1841 — and Ḥasība Moshēh, Jewish ‘nightingale of the Damascene gardens’. Thurayyā Qaddūra from Jerusalem; Yūsuf Tāj, a folk singer from Mount-Lebanon; Farjallāh Baiḍā, cousin to the founders of Baidaphon Records… Musical directors like the lutist Qāsim Abū Jamīl al-Durzī and the violinist Anṭūn al-Shawwā (followed by his son Sāmī); such virtuosi as the qanun-players Nakhleh Ilyās al-Maṭarjī and Ya‘qūb Ghazāla, and lutist Salīm ‘Awaḍ.
Even at the time, notwithstanding such brilliance, public music-making was frowned upon as morally demeaning, especially for women. Musical venues were generally dodgy. Ṣulbān once cut short a wedding performance for the Beiruti posh, after just one song, he was so disgusted with his audience.
‘If I had to tell you about the catcalls,’ one commentator wrote about the musical theatre of the time, ‘the stomping of feet, the sound of sticks hitting the ground, the noise of the water-pipes, the teeth cracking watermelon seeds and pistachio nuts, the screams of the waiters, and the clinking of arak glasses on the tables, I would need to go on and on and on…’

Tipped by the New York Times: ‘I have heard no more beautiful record this year… a righteous calm takes over the album like a spirit force.’

Utterly beautiful contemporary recordings.