Hailing from Cairo, 33-year-old oud player and composer Aly Eissa is a member of the brilliant trance-inducing trio The Handover, and this is his latest solo project. His inspirations include Abdo Dagher, the oud player and violinist who performed with Oum Kalthoum, and oud master Hazem Shahin (who was declared ‘The Best Oud Player in the Arab World’ in 2002).
Eissa’s style of playing is at once rooted in Arabic tradition, Egyptian classical music and folk music traditions, while also soaring into its own improvisatory, exploratory, expansive intricacies. That he started out as a teen metalhead on guitar is another useful point on his music’s compass.
The title-track, in two parts, clocks in at a mammoth 38 minutes, an immersive,…
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