reviews / 2011

AL DOUM & THE FARYDS - Al Doum & The Faryds

Name: AL DOUM & THE FARYDS – Al Doum & The Faryds
Item: Al Doum & The Faryds
Rating: 7
Author: Antonio Ciarletta

2011 (Self-released)

psychedelia

by Antonio Ciarletta

For decades now, underground musicians have been dipping freely into the sounds and suggestions of Africa and the Middle East, and that's exactly what Al Doum & The Faryds do too: a six-piece ensemble devoted to music that creatively blends disorienting ethno-exoticism with Western psychedelia.

Inside this fine self-titled vinyl there's a bit of everything, mixed together with real skill. There are the inevitable echoes of Omar Souleyman, or at least of that whole sonic territory the Syrian musician has (inevitably) come to represent; there's free jazz with a strong Middle Eastern tinge; there's kraut-rock – especially in the ethno-inflected vein of Beetween and Agitation Free – and there's a restless, at times unsettling darkness that gives the sense of music that can never be fully grasped.

There are five tracks, all of them good or better. What stands out is the mystical trance of "Totem," twelve minutes of Velvet Underground-style feedback over which (free) blasts of sax soar, and the tribal pulse of "Dust."

The closing "Elephant" makes the sonic ties to Jooklo Family explicit.

Julian Cope has already set his sights on this record and reviewed it favorably on his bible of a website. If you're tuned to these frequencies, don't miss it.

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16/02/2012

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This article is an English translation of the original Italian text by Antonio Ciarletta, published on OndaRock.it. It was translated with the help of artificial intelligence, under the editorial responsibility of OndaRock's editor-in-chief, Claudio Fabretti.

Read the original in Italian · About the English edition