Press release : It is said that Damascus – old Damascus, the 7,000-year-old capital of Syria – is a bit like a veiled woman who keeps her beauty hidden. Get close, and you’re dazzled. In this labyrinthine city whole worlds of activity exist behind closed doors. Sights and sounds are imbued with an almost sensual power. Calls to prayer echo alongside music that has sweeping scope and epic punch; music that keeps the past alive as it surges, wave-like, into the future. Eastern music. Western music. A compelling fusion of both.
Having experienced her splendour and worked closely with her artisans, Syriana presents Al Bidayeh (The Beginning), an EP that brings this cryptic Middle Eastern metropolis to the world. Four tracks, four different takes: Gharibb (Stranger), a sung meditation on notions of home. Road to Damascus, with its call-and-response vocals and swelling strings. Syriana, which nods to movie themes and Fifties Arabia, to great divas Fairuz and Abdel Halim. Sunday/Randall and Hopkirk Deceased/Peter’s Room, part improvisation, part Sixties TV theme tune on qanun (Arabic dulcimer), piano and guitar.
As fluid and organic as the music it makes, Syriana is a project that works as well pared down as it does bigged up. This year’s WOMAD line-up is but one incarnation: here are core members Bernard O’Neill and Nick Page, a double-bassist and guitarist (among their other esteemed mantles) recently privy to Damascus’s charms. Here is Palestinian/Jordanian frontman Nizar Alissa; Algerian violinist and mandol (Berber mandolin) player Mounir ‘Moon’ Baziz; Palestinian percussionist and rapper Iba Abu Khalaf. Here, behind the band, are film projections by Italian-born filmmaker Nico Piazza.
Here, too, are other musicians that share the Syriana aesthetic; that inhabit a space where imagination and reality overlap. Where ancient civilisations and Eastern aspirations vie and blend with Cold War iconography and Western stereotypes. Where boundaries are dismantled. From London to Berlin, Istanbul to Damascus. Where coming together feels effortless, significant and inspired.
The EP Al Bidayeh
Related resources:
Jane Cornwell's Syriana Biography
