Allow me to begin by stating that I know virtually nothing about either Middle Eastern or traditional Islamic music. I have been known to get down to some Omar Souleyman and I certainly dig the sound of the oud, but my knowledge of Middle Eastern culture in general doesn't stretch much farther than knowing the difference between fattoush and tabbouleh. However, I do know quite a lot about 60's mod and psych, so I do know, for example, that high octane mod group The Action (an amazing Brit R&B group, in case you're interested) broke up sometime around 1968 and formed heavy psych band Mighty Baby, releasing two albums of rather bog standard proggy rock before - get this - three members of the band took a trip (double entendre alert) to Morocco, converted to Islam, and abandoned rock 'n' roll for good. Mighty Baby disbanded, and the new Sufi converts forged ahead as an authentic Islamic spiritual group called The Habibiyya. Here, unfortunately, is where I'm bound to fail as a trustworthy reviewer of this album: I think it's great, but for all I know, it could sound to Arabic music enthusiasts like Vanilla Ice sounds to hip-hop heads. Whatever. This sound is so completely removed from that of The Action and Mighty Baby that it's really quite remarkable that the band was able to reinvent themselves so thoroughly over the course of only two years. Needless to say, this ain't psychedelic rock, but it certainly is psychedelic in that it truly challenges and excites the senses. Drones, chants, and rhythms all meld together to create a marvelous head trip of an album. If Man But Knew sounds, to my ears, quite authentic as a piece of traditional Sufi music, but it also manages to retain some degree of eclecticism, particularly in the way it employs traditional Japanese instrumentation like the koto and shakuhachi. Overall, this is a wonder and a joy of an album, and one of the most fascinating products of the newly worldly and culturally aware musical community of the early 1970's.
This is a great music. Thanks for sharing, though, I originally downloaded it from Filestube.
ReplyDeleteGood upload. Keep it up.