They worked before on Tassa’s sixth album Basuf Mitray lim De Hakal, but now Tel Aviv artist Dudu Tassa and Jonny Greenwood are teaming up again for this project, which translates roughly as “your neighbour is your friend”, a lovely sentiment for our times. Thankfully, it’s never mawkish nor too sweet, retaining the spirit of experimentation of both artists. They take the listener across Jordan, Morocco, Egypt and Algeria, reworking old songs and adding extra arrangements like choir, Moog, oud and complex banks of percussion.
Taq ou Dub which features Nour Freteikh’s captivating vocals sets the scene. It’s a gorgeous fusion of Israeli traditional music with analog keyboards and beats. Ashufak Shay with Rashid So Naijar, absolutely soars, an at once eerie and epic moment with swirling strings, building like a cinematic track.
Elsewhere, the guitars, bass, synth and strings get loose and funky, as with the wild rhythms on Ya Anid Ya Yabba, bringing new textures to the old standard. The combination of Arabic oud and wild guitars is spine-tingling.
In short, it’s the kind of album that’s absolutely perfect for headphones, with a fastidious attention to multi-layered sonics.
Greenwood, who said he had to “unlearn” much of his own technique along the way, has stated that he wants to make the listener feel like “they’re taking Kraftwerk to Cairo in the 70s” – job done, I would say, but even better.