Ibrahim Maalouf

In 2005, even before the release of his first album, Ibrahim began work that seemed obvious to him. With his first album, Ibrahim had made an artistic proposal, but was far from having finished everything he had to say. And this second album was the logical continuation of the first. An evolution in the form of a question. "Do I necessarily have to evolve in a clear artistic direction: Eastern or Western? Am I forced by my origins to take refuge in the ease of exoticism? Ibrahim asks this question through an astonishing process. 2 CDs in the same album. One is "Disoriental" and the other "Paradoxidental", and both deal with the same question from two very different angles. The first is the oriental's view of the mixing with the West. The other is the Westerner's view of mixing with the East. According to Ibrahim, this album is a work of research. Far from being a result, it is part of an artistic and intimate therapeutic process.

After his remarkably successful acoustic album Wind, Maalouf comes back with a more electric sound on Illusions. It is an album born out of, and designed for, performance on stage. It not only features the members of his regular band, Frank Woeste on the keyboard, François Delporte on the guitar, Xavier Roge on the drums et Laurent David on the bass, but also adds three more quarter-tone trumpeters (Youenn Le Cam, Yann Martin and Martin Saccardy) to bring a even higher level of dynamism to the sound. Maalouf says, "I wanted this album to be festive and full of positive energy… it starts with the most tragic view of the world: cynicism. It then gradually evolves towards light and hope."

The 10 studio albums of Ibrahim Maalouf 2007-2020 grouped together in a collector's box in Limited and Numbered Edition. « Diasporas » (2007), « Diachronism » (2009), « Diagnostic » (2011), « Wind » (2012), « Illusions » (2013), « Kalthoum » (2015), « Red & Black Light » (2015), « Levantine Symphony n°1 » (2018), « S3NS » (2019), « 40 Melodies » (2020).

A pioneering figure in the world of contemporary jazz thanks to his fusion of pop, soul, electro, hip-hop, and French chansons with the music of his Lebanese roots, Ibrahim Maalouf is widely regarded as one of the most gifted trumpeters of his generation. Born in Beirut in 1980 to a pianist mother and famous trumpeter father, Nassim, he fled to the suburbs of Paris with his family from a young age during the midst of the Lebanon civil war.