High Music Recommend - Amir Sofi's New CD

[danidance]

People,

I got this last night and although I was expecting a collection of really good tabla tracks, what is on the CD is way better!

Definitely designed with the performer in mind - longest track is 6:28 - the rest are all 5:45 and under - really lovely orchestrations with plenty of rhythm changes and textures to make the songs highly danceable with opportunities to showcase lots of nice movements within each song.

I think this was recorded in Cairo and it has that big Cairo orchestra sound (El Maseya Orchestra but I don't see the vocalists names on the two tracks with vocals - really great though) and of course you get really great tabla underlying it all and featured throughout. The drum solo track is really good - also as expected.

Tracks for listening & CDs for ordering are here (top CD shown is the new one with the tracks to the right on the screen.)

http://www.amirsofi.com/albums.htm

There are a few tracks that are probably geared toward the tribal fusion crowd but other than that I think it's pretty straightforwardly Oriental. I wasn't particularly drawn to those tracks but I can appreciate the reason for having them in there.

[lisazahiya]

I've been looking for something (new) like this... Thanks for the recommendation!

[*maria*]

Love this CD too!
I also just got PEKO's Soul of Cairo, it's a good one too!

[danidance]

thanks for the heads up - I was looking at those new Peko releases and thinking several were definitely for my "to get" list.

Originally Posted by *maria*

Love this CD too!
I also just got PEKO's Soul of Cairo, it's a good one too!

[*maria*]

Yes, Soul of Cairo is awesome. Definitely a keeper. I like every song on it.
Aziz, my Moroccan friend who is the valet for the restaurant where I dance, parked my car saturday night, and sat in it and listened to the cd, he's buying one this week!
He loved it.....
I'm mixing a performance cd with songs from soul of cairo as we speak....

hey, peko, DANCECAP is on it's way to you for some cash for selling two of the cd's right now, dani, want in?

[Aradia]

Amir rocks!!!

He use to live in Las Vegas, where I got to perform 5 days a week with him, when we all worked at Desert Passage at the Aladdin and had our Arabic show. He really is a dancers drummer. He was married to one of our local dancers at one time, she's on the cover of his first CD. I'm a big fan of his music and drumming style.

I love his new CD, definitely a keeper!!

[TanyaLV]

Not to mention he is very cute!

[Adishakti]

Oh, YUMMY! Off to buy it right now.

Thanks!

[Sashy]

I found that new Amir CD sooo good it deserves a DVD with Jillina as dancer.
I sent him an email commenting exactly this

[elisagamal]

I love the cd, too. while I'm a tried and true fan of traditional orientale music, I really liked the three modern pieces on the cd. I played them in class and my students all loved them, too. great for modern veil, class warm-up, or just listening.