Eliyahu and The Qadim Ensemble - "Im Nin'alu"

Free Download - "Im Nin'alu" by Eliyahu and The Qadim Ensemble from the album "Eastern Wind" Produced by Jef Stott for Embarka Records


Six Degrees artist and friend Jef Stott recently produced a record for Eliyahu and The Qadim Ensemble and was generous enough to share a track from the record and some insight into the recording process! Thanks Jef!

I had the good fortune to be asked to produce the new album for Eliyahu and
Qadim early last year. It seemed to me a great opportunity to reconnect
with my "roots" in traditional music from the Middle East and step away,
for a moment, from the fast moving world of electronic music production.

Our intention on this production was to use only acoustic instruments but
record and arrange them in a contemporary way, i.e adding heavily
compressed contra bass to saturate the low end or creating deep
interlocking rhythm sections with many layers of percussion played expertly
by Fasil Zedan and John Villa as well as jump-cut edits and subtle dub
effects as a nod to the current era, circa now.

But mostly we wanted to lovingly create a collection of pieces that reflect
the diversity of the region known as the Middle East, an area that is sadly
too often in the news and is known primarily for conflict and injustice.
The collection of material presented by Eliyahu and Rachel spans the whole
range of cultures of the area, Arabic, Persian, Armenian, Mizrahi Jewish
and a few original jams thrown in for good measure. The result is a deep,
playful and expansive album that is absolutely gorgeous. The vocal and oud
performances by Rachel are consistently stunning and Eliyahu's solos on
ney and bansuri are as deep as any taksims I have heard.

We released the album on my Embarka Records label and it is available
everywhere, Itunes, CD Baby, Embarka Records website etc...
www.embarkarecords.com
Thanks to the folks at Six Degrees for helping us put the word out!

cheers,
Jef Stott

.