Assa’d Khoury’s second and final record has an almost mythical status among Arabic record collectors. Originally copies of the 1978 landmark LP are scarce, making the Syrian musician’s unique blend of microtonal Farfisa, fuzz guitars and Middle Eastern percussion a holy grail for crate diggers and psych hounds for decades.
Its reputation is well-deserved, as — despite its cheesy retro album art and exotic album title — Khoury’s re-imaginings of traditional Arabic melodies for modified electronic organ somehow manage to sound both impressively futuristic and weirdly retrograde, as if a Damascus lounge band had been abducted and forced to perform at an intergalactic casino.
Despite its far-out, futurist sounds, Khoury…

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