“Chemsi” is the new album by Belgian band ‘Hijaz’ (after the success of their debut album "Dunes").
"you can almost smell the aroma of Eastern spices floating out of the studio."
This is essentially a jazz album, but one with a difference since the Arabic music scales, the instrumentation (mainly North African and Middle Eastern) and the influence of Greek Rembetika are so infused into the album that you can almost smell the aroma of Eastern spices floating out of the studio. Although the more familiar instruments of piano (Niko Deman), bass (Vincent Noiret) and drumkit (Chryster Aerts) are skilfully in evidence throughout, it’s the interplay between these and the traditional non-Western instruments that make this CD so interesting. The band describe it as “a marriage of the piano, great instrument from the Western musical tradition, with the stringed instrument that has become synonymous with the Middle East, the oud.”
(HIJAZ)
