Bishop, Sir Richard / Freaks Of Araby

Drag City

formats available

CD
$13.75
DC 398 CD
781484039822
Street Date:
May 26th, 2009
Ship Date:
May 18th, 2009
LP
$15.00
DC 398
781484039815
Street Date:
May 26th, 2009
Ship Date:
May 18th, 2009

The Freak of Araby is the debut of SIR RICHARD BISHOP (SUN CITY GIRLS) and his FREAK OF ARABY ENSEMBLE, a talented quartet of players getting deep into the Middle Eastern mystic with hand drums, percussion, bass, drums, electric guitars and a heavy dose of Moroccan chanters, all of it captured with depth, detail and sympathy for the eternal enigma by engineer SCOT COLBRUN. After recording a cover of “Ka’an Azzaman,” written by Elias Rahbani, one of Lebanon’s finest songwriters, something dawned on Sir Richard. Half-Lebanese by birth (it didn’t just occur to him later), he found himself suddenly possessed to really dig into Middle Eastern sounds. A pair of original melodies not fully developed at a prior recording session had the Arabic inspiration, so these were re-attacked and finished in short order. Soon, Sir Richard’s head was flooded with some of the classic sounds spun for him by his grandfather back in his (way) younger days, like Farid Al-Atrache, Oum Kalthoum and Fairuz, along with other personal favorites, such as the guitarists Omar Khorshid and Mike Hegazi. In addition to the studio improvisation, “Taqasim for Omar,” the whole of The Freak of Araby is dedicated to these inspiring players. (STREET DATE - 5/26/2009)