Sublime Frequencies V.A. : Choubi Choubi ! -folk and pop sounds from Iraq-(IRQ,'70's->2002)***°
Seeing and hearing this great compilation compiled by Mark Gergis, with the help of many people, I remember that I almost had purchased the 70’s socialist folkrock LP from Ja’afar Hassan on ebay once but only at the last hour someone else put in a higher bid which was unnoticed by me. Luckily there are three tracks from this album included. Most other tracks are from the Saddam Hussein regime period, a period which seemed to have encouraged the expression of music. Most of the recordings collected here come from LP’s and tapes found in Syria, Europe and Iraqi neighbourhoods in some parts of the US. ‘Choubi’ is a festive driving rhythmic style with hypnotic effect. Other Iraqi styles included are debka, another rhythmic dance style, basta, bezikh, hecha and mawal, which includes a vocal improvisation. Typical for Iraq are crispy rapid fire-machine-gun like rhythms produced by the ‘khishba’. Recordings in general were originally especially made to keep the artist’s name alive for obtaining new paid gigs (at night clubs, parties, in restaurants, ..), and were copied over all the area. All listed examples are from slightly to truly hypnotic (some more than others). I can imagine this is just a fragment of what musically is and was possible. I like especially the weird unknown hecha track (6), and of course the Ja’afar Hassan tracks, from the LP which became known amongst collectors for some reasons, but most tracks (for me especially the first 2/3rd of the compilation) are true winners to some degree within a certain tradition.
(-the "Thaught me" track is the Ja'Afar track-)
