Burj Al Imam, by "A" Trio & Alan Bishop

Burj Al Imam

by "A" Trio & Alan Bishop

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Comes in a beautiful gatefold sleeve that unfolds into a colored poster, with artwork by Mazen Kerbaj and design by Studio Safar. Each disc is individually numbered.

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Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of The Wondrous Reverberations of Halim El-Dabh, Ensemble 1: Al Jadi, Nemesis, Alkisah Remixed [Beirut Edition], Alkisah [Beirut Edition], Bitter Balls, A New World, Rats Don't Eat Synthesizers, and 12 more. , and , .

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1.	Howling Sheep 06:45	buy track
2.	Burj al Imam 13:24	buy track
3.	Smoking Elevator 05:11	buy track
4.	Folk Machinery 08:13	buy track
5.	Gently Johnny 05:15	buy track

about

It is through his work for "world music" label Sublime Frequencies, that Bishop met and became friends with Lebanese improvising musicians Mazen Kerbaj (trumpet), Raed Yassin (double bass) and Sharif Sehnaoui (electric guitar), who have operated collectively as free jazz unit “A Trio” since 2003. In 2012, during a trip to Beirut to participate in the annual Irtijal Festival for Experimental Music, Bishop entered the studio with Kerbaj, Sehnaoui and Yassin, to lay down the first rough sketches of the “Burj el Imam” album.

The album was eventually completed a year later, during another one of Bishop’s frequent visits to the Lebanese capital. Entirely recorded at Tunefork Studios, a highly esteemed recording studio located on the outskirts of Beirut, “Burj el Imam”’s five tracks include three largely improvised numbers, a loose reworking of early Sun City Girls track “The Imam”, and a cover of traditional Americana song “Gently Johnny”.
The album displays remarkable coherence, for 4 musicians coming from such different backgrounds.

True to their habits, Kerbaj, Sehnaoui and Yassin create acoustic improvised drones that range from insistent, chiming resonances with emergency alarm bells, to low thrumming hums – evoking helicopter gunships hovering overhead, or bulldozers demolishing bomb-blasted apartments. The three musicians largely avoid conventional technique, instead using what sounds like motorized devices to generate rattling, metallic vibrations, building a mechanistic backdrop out of which the instruments’ true voices occasionally arise. Perched above the ambient din, Bishop is in fine form, and alternates between gentle crooning and malevolent whispering.

credits

released June 22, 2015

Alan Bishop: guitar, voice
Mazen Kerbaj: trumpet
Sharif Sehnaoui: guitar
Raed Yassin: double bass

Recorded and mixed in 2012 by Fadi Tabbal at Tunefork Studios, Beirut, Lebanon
Mastered by Harris Newman, Greymarket Mastering, Montreal, Canada

Design by Studio Safar

CD version produced in Lebanon by Annihaya
Vinyl version available to order from Unrock here:
www.unrock.de/product/unrocklp006-extended-edition/

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about

Annihaya Records Beirut, Lebanon

Created in 2009 by Lebanese musicians and producers Raed Yassin and Sharif Sehnaoui and visual artist Hatem Imam, Annihaya is a conceptual music label that specializes in the displacement, deconstruction and 'recycling' of popular or folkloric musical cultures. ... more

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