Arte.tv has an interesting 3 part concert - not sure from when (Arte never seems to mention dates) - with
Yael Naim, Orange Blossom and Robinson Khoury, none of whom I had ever heard before or even heard
of. It begins with
Robinson Khoury, who has quite a unique sound. I enjoyed this music and followed him already on SoundCloud.
Yael Naim is apparently an Israeli-French singer of Tunisian Jewish extraction. I enjoyed
some of her music. She has a wonderful rapport with the audience and engages them between songs (unfortunately I got just the gist of her French). However, a couple of her songs - the ones in English,
davka, I really didn't like, and ended up not listening to her whole performance.
Orange Blossom is a band that combines Arabic songs and World Music with modern beats. It's a great sound. The musicians are all good and the singer, Maria Hassan, is fabulous. She is fairly new to the band, and replaced a previous singer, Hend Ahmed Hassan (and before her Leïla Bounous).
At first I loved the energy and vibrance of this music, but as I continued listening, I began to feel that it was just a little formulaic. Each song begins slowly, with beautiful vocals, but as it continues, the instruments take over, till there is a crescendo of sound, and then: it suddenly stops.
Unfortunately I've gotten spoiled by listening to two-hour unbroken DJ mixes, so I thought, maybe it's just me. And I'm not much of a music critic - I barely understand anything about music. However I just got some assurance in my impressions now from reading an
article that expressed exactly my feelings:
De ce concert, on ressort dans une grande ambivalence : d’une part émerveillés par la qualité et l’originalité de la musique et d’autre part assez frustrés, quelque peu lassé de morceaux construit sur la même structure : chant/ harmonie qui démarrent doucement puis relance des percus et élévation de la tension pour finir souvent trop abruptement.
He also says that it was too bad there was not more interaction with the audience - indeed Maria is the only one who says anything, and that's mostly "Merci beaucoup; thank you; shukran."
Anyway,
shukran, Orange Blossom and Maria - I still really enjoyed this. And also to Robinson Khoury and Yael Naim and Arte.tv for bringing us such interesting music.
