Samantha Youssef

Some musicians experience a sacred and deeply intimate relation with their art. When a 19-year-old Dhafer Youssef discovered Indian music in Vienna, where he was studying classical music, it had the effect of a bewildering epiphany on him. Hindu sonorities struck a deep chord within Dhafer’s musical soul – thirty years later, the Tunisian composer reminisces : « I was both filled with wonder as well as deeply convinced that one day I would be performing alongside the most legendary players of Indian music ». A memorable show from Ali Akbar Khan, the master of Indian sarod, at the Wiener Konzerthaus in Vienna came to seal the deal for the vocalist and oud master. From then on, Dhafer Youssef lived and breathed Indian music. Or was it Indian music that had appointed him to become its messenger?

Dhafer Youssef - Birds Requiem (2013) {OKeh Recordings 88883721842}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 355 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 150 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 69 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2013 Dhafer Youssef / OKeh Recordings / Sony Music | 88883721842
Jazz / Spiritual Sufi / African Folk / World Jazz Fusion / Ethnic Jazz / Mysterious / Oud

Tunisian oud master, vocalist, and composer Dhafer Youssef is globally renowned for his restless musicality. He has used his ancient instrument – five millennia and counting – to explore jazz, classical, and blues, in addition to the classical and folk musics of the Middle East, North Africa, and Mediterranean regions. The ephemeral Birds Requiem is his debut offering for Sony's resurrected Okeh imprint. The players on this date include his trio with pianist Kristjan Randalu and trumpeter Nils-Petter Molvaer, and the complete ensemble (which recorded primarily in Sweden) features clarinetist Hüsnu Senlendirici, bassist Phil Donkin, drummer Chander Sardjoe, and electric guitarist Eivind Aarset, which also provides various electronic treatments.

Tunisia-born singer and oudist Dhafer Youssef should be recording for ECM. His albums have a similar spiritual, centered quality to the work appearing on that label, and his work on this album with some of Norway's top jazz players points completely in that direction. He lives very much on the cutting edge, taking things even further than he did on 2001's Electric Sufi. Where that album used electronica as the periphery of the music, here he brings it to the heart of the sound, integrating it seamlessly into his compositions, as on "Aya," where a seemingly found sound becomes the heartbeat of the track. His collaborators, including trumpeter Nils Petter Molvær, offer him plenty of space, and that's what the music needs – it's as wide open as the Tunisian desert.