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Review:
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Omar Ahmad is Palestinian New Yorker who
plays cello and guitar, programs synths, DJs,
and adds sings. Inheritance is
his debut record, and he must be exhausted
after doing all of that stuff himself. But
this is a worthwhile release.
This is nice, old school, electronic ambient.
Samples waver in and out of keyboard riffs and
random drones. There is a good bit of echo to
most things, which gives the music a nice,
fuzzed out, relaxed approach. It reminds me of
late 90s releases by Ultramarine, or the early
2000s work of Worriedaboutsatan.
Mr. Ahmad has created a nice record along
those lines.
The record starts, appropriately, with a sample
of a door opening, then piano and cello wander
over a sample of people talking. The piano
wanders over some drones for a while, as drones
build and layer. At about the two minute mark,
drums and guitar come in and the song rocks,
slightly and then a minute later it swells with
a throbbing but subdued rave beat. It's a
fascinating mix of sounds, but Ahmad makes it
all work. The song is called A Little Time
for Me, and He packs a lot into the five
minutes of this tune, but it is the introduction
to the record, a kind of overture of what is to
follow.
Gesso starts off with Ahmad talking
with a small child and a woman in what I
presume is Arabic. Synths drone and waver in
and out of a sample of flowing water, driving
the song along.
On Sham Oasis some kind of middle
eastern sounding string instrument clatters
over synths that whoosh as they escape from an
old Star Trek episode. The spacey sounds and
the Middle Eastern sounds layer nicely, and
this one really reminds me of Ultramarine and
the whole late 1990s Astralwerks scene. It
builds to a nice beat-filled climax, with hand
drums and spacey synths.
Lapses has a really nice beat, and
just grooves along lightly with a wonderful
bass riff. On Losing a Friend the beat
is a stuttering loop or of small sounds, very
Boards of Canada-like.
Except that Ahmad makes is sound disconcerting
by very aggressively cross-fading, making the
whole song appear to shudder and twist. I
suppose is the point, given the title, a sort
of music feeling of groundlessness.
Usra brings back that 1990s loping
beat. On Descended from a Wanaque Tree
(Borrowed Memory) Ahmad layers lots of
synths and a kind of tinkling sound, which is
pretty cool.
And finally the record ends with Cygnet
Song, which is a beautiful combination
of varous guitar parts. This is really lovely,
just acoustic guitar in simple layers, and
reminds me of Bibio.
So this is pretty interesting stuff. Ahmad
has a lot of good musical ideas, and he has
the skill to carry them out. I like the
eclectic nature of this music, the various
instruments and the electro bits fusing
together.
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