Sunday at Bob's #8 - Goodbye Casual

Goodbye casual sundays at Bob's, high season is back and the reservation list is getting longer and longer. My last shift ended at 2AM instead of the usual midnight. Late check-ins and errors in the counting delayed everything but well, the rest of the year is so pleasant that it's already forgotten. All that to say that the following two or three posts might include more quotes than usual since I have less time. This week's playlist is a bit in the continuity of the last one in the sense that I tried to remain consistent, picked songs that take their time to express themselves and did not make exagerated jumps in between moods. I hope you will like it, here it is.

It begins with the outstanding greek musician Kostas Bezos and The White Birds. Outstanding by his Hawaiian inspired version of Rembetiko (some of his songs even include yodel) which I find very unexpected but beautiful. Who knew that Greek popular music had a real kink for Hawaiian steel guitar music since the 1920’s? (...) If we consider the connection between the guitar’s ancient arabic roots, and the way it mutated into lap steel and ukulele styles out in the middle of the Pacific during the 1800s before becoming absorbed into Greek middle class and popular music of the 1920’s, then Kostas Bezos And The White Birds pushes the concept of Greek folk music as a bridge between East and West to totally new, extreme degrees for any listener who has a taste for this sound unmatched by their knowledge of it provenance. (source) I will probably include and write a bit more about Rembetiko in the coming weeks because it is very interesting.

Then we have a song by the marvelous Francis Bebey that was introduced to me five years ago by a Dutch drawing teacher of mine who was really into it. One song in particular stayed with me since then, Sanza Tristesse is not featured here but I strongly recommend it. Bebey was born in a poor family of Douala, economic capital of Cameroon. His dad, a pastor who plays accordeon, introduced him to music and raised him to the sound of Bach, Haendel etc. He also had an ear for traditional music through his neighbour who would play the mouth bow at night. Apart from being a great musician, he worked as a journalist for french and african radios. He was also a remarkable writer (Sanza Tristesse testifies) and in 1968 he won the Grand prix littéraire d'Afrique noire for his book Le Fils d’Agatha Moundio.

After that come Les Filles de Illighadad (the girls from Illighadad), a band I discovered live in OCCII two years ago and I was instantly struck by the power and the mastery they express over their music. They truly use their voices the same way they use their instruments (it might sound like I am breaking through an open door but I think that in that case it is particularly true). It is very impressive on Imigradan how the vocals in the beggining echoe with the electric guitar that comes after. If you want to know more about them (and if you understand french) click here.

We go on with Nâ Hawa Doumbia from Mali who I encountered first on Awesome Tapes From Africa. I don't know much about her, I have four tracks on my computer that I play once in a while. I find the (complex) simplicity of her songs almost holy and could listen to it for hours.

Today's playlist features as well Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek, a fresh and modern super-quintet which performs an electrified and highly danceable set of Turkish music led by Derya Yıldırım’s hypnotizing Saz and vocals. It combines Anatolian Folk and modern grooves, often contaminated by hints of Psychedelia, Jazz and Funk. (source) A band that, with Altın Gün and other, are spreading a contemporary version of the Anatolian Rock inherited from Erkin Koray (who was mentioned here a few weeks ago) and more, around the world. Ibrahim Maalouf and his breathtaking take on Oum Kalthoum's Alf Leila wa Leila. In Movement I we can hear him play around with the sentence Winta wana, ya habibi ana, ya hayati ana (you and me, my love, my life) sung so wonderfully in the strongly recommended original version. I wanted to make a comparison between that melodic repetition and the one happening right after in Mixed Feelings of Jean-Paul Estiévenart (who I saw completely randomly in Brussels a few months ago and then again in the Bimhuis with Urbex and was blown away). That pam-pam-pam coming back is the reason why I put those two songs back to back. I have the feeling they have a lot in common. 

We also have the South African Jazz band Mabuta, the intergalactic Luiz Bonfá from Brasil and the Moroccan band of the 70s Jil Jilala who I will most likely expand a bit more about in the coming weeks since I am off to Morocco from July to September and intend to explore.


That's it for this week!
Enjoy, and remember to check out before 10h30 (tea and coffee are served at the reception until 11h00).

The receptionist

Playlist:

1. Kostas Bezos and the White Birds - Τ’Άσπρα Πουλιά στα βουνα (The White Birds In The Mountains)
2. Francis Bebey - Binta madiallo
3.  Les Filles de Illighadad - Imigradan
4. Na Hawa Doumbia - Demisen kulu
5. Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek - Nem Kaldı
6. Ibrahim Maalouf - Movement I
7. Jean-Paul Estiévenart - Mixed Feelings
8. Mabuta - As We Drift Away
9. Luiz Bonfá - Leque
10. Jil Jilala - Hada Wa'dek Ya Meskin