SOUNDS OF AL-MASHRIQ

The Sounds of VTech / Coleman: Sounds of Al-Mashriq (Middle East Mix)

Brand new mix from Coleman and the Mochilla crew. We'll have this in stock soon but here's the run down!

Sounds of Al-Mashriq: The Land Where the Sun Rises

Mochilla has brought you some beautiful mixes over the past twelve months: Hear the World, Addis to Axum, and the Verocai retrospective, Arranjos e Compisicoes. We value the idea of new old music, treasures that most likely haven’t found their way to your ears yet, and today’s mix is no different.

This past summer, Coleman and myself, along with Jay Electronica and his DJ, TJ the King, Ommar Offendum, and Will Quantic had the chance to go to the Middle East and play. We even made it to Egypt and linked with Kutmah there, but that’s a whole other story… This mix represents some of what we learnt. It’s a group effort, but Coleman made the whole thing seem magically coherent…

This is the liner note from the back of the cd:

The Mashriq (Arabic: مشرق, also transcribed as Mashreq, Mashrek) is the Arabic term referring to a large area in the Middle East that is bounded between the Mediterranean Sea and Iran. It is derived from the Arabic consonantal root sh-r-q (ش ر ق) and essentially means “east” — or more poetically, “place of sunrise.” It is therefore the companion term to Maghreb (مغرب), which simultaneously suggests “west” or “sunset,” and is a reference to the Arabic-speaking countries of North Africa.

Mochilla has had the opportunity to visit Lebanon and Jordan twice within the past year, as well as Egypt most recently. We were invited by our friends Nasser Kalaji and Laith Majali of Immortal Entertainment to play our music in Beirut and Amman, and to experience for ourselves how life is at this incredible cultural crossroads. To say that we have been astonished, amazed, shocked, gratified and humbled is to put things mildly. We have only begun to scratch the deep surface of this world, and yet so many things have been revealed already.

In honor of these visits and our growing cultural exchange, we are presenting a mix of some of the music that we collected, picked up, swapped and bought along the way. Coleman always delivers when it comes to these mixes and this is no different: from Jay-Z samples to the fidjeri vocal music of Bahraini pearl divers, this is a journey worth taking. Enjoy, open your ears and let the beauty and depth of the cradle of civilization wash away your preconceptions… -B+

(photos by Laith Majali)