 Hamza El-Din As haunting and gorgeous as music can be, Eclipse is Hamza El-Din's masterpiece, as wonderful as Escalay and then some. It may be the best disc Rykodisc has ever put out, and is almost certainly the best disc Mickey Hart has ever had anything to do with (he produced it). There is a quality of space to the album that makes it instantly affecting and extremely striking, the music resonating deeply and benefitting much from the perfect acoustics. It is a spare album, just oud, tar drum, and voice (with the occasional handclaps), but it fills the empty space with a wealth of deeply felt, rich music. Sonically it's a perfect disc – as the old CD Review magazine used to say, "Performance 10, Sound Quality 10." Unless you follow international music ("world music" as they used to call it back in my day) pretty avidly, a lot of it seems to blend together, but this disc stands out immediately and does not tire. I've had it for just over a decade and I still return to it again and again, and it's not just to explore my Nubian roots. The songs are amazing, and not only sound good, but seem genuinely important – like if everyone could hear this music, we'd just have no more trouble. Ah, but look at the trouble we have today. Shooting sprees in school are bad enough, but all the worse when the newcomers don't even credit the old-school: where are Laurie Dann's props? She started the whole school-shooting-spree genre. But like Kurtis Blow, she falls into obscurity as the hot new mass murderers storm up the charts. It gets to the point where I have to turn off the TV and retreat into my room filled with pillows and space out to music like this. The liner notes to Eclipse take the typical "explore the foreign world through its music" approach, offering some vaguely interesting explanations of the song forms and instrumentation, but honestly I don't feel obliged to envision the "migrating pelican" conjured in the track "Helalisa" to enjoy the song, nor do I need to recognize the "mixture of Iraqi maqam Egyptian melody, and Sudanese pentatonic, ornamented with a Nubian flavor" to appreciate the composition "The Visitors." Actually, rereading the booklet for the first time in about ten years, I see that one of the tracks is an homage to the great Egyptian singer Um Kalthoum, who I've recently learned more about, so that actually is interesting. Pardon my condescending jack-assiness a moment ago, and whatever condescending jack-assiness is sure to come. Hamza's voice is expressive and passionate without becoming overwhelming like, for example, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's sometimes does, and his oud playing is unbeatable. I'd call him the "Eddie Van Halen of the oud," but that would only be wishing diabetes on him, right? Doesn't Eddie Van Halen have diabetes? Well, serves him right for the notorious "no brown M&M's" tour rider. Okay, I'll can the so-called comedy for a moment and insist that everyone in the world add Eclipse to their collection promptly, and appreciate it not as your one "world music" album, but love it like a brother. The sooner you do, your soul will become purified, and you'll be free of the need to listen to utter shit like you do. Ah, it's good to judge people for no reason. See, this beautiful, pure and spiritual music has really done me good!
Review by Encyclopedia Brownstain |
