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It has to be something in the water or the ground. It just has to be very furtile over there. I'm talking about Montreal, Canada here, and the amazing amount of good experimental acts that originates from that area. Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Do Make Say Think, A Silver Mt. Zion, Molasses, Frankie Sparo, they all come from Montreal. Just like Shalabi Effect. This band seems to be the most experimental band from the Montreal scene. It's definitely not suitable for everybody. First of all: do you like drones? This is an important question for this music. If you don't like drones, don't bother to read on. This is not for you. Second question: do you want your music served in real songs? Stop reading. This is not for you. Then what is it, you might ask. The 131 minutes of music filling these two CDs are semi-improvised drones, with big influences from middle eastern folk and pychedelica. Shalabi Effect consists of four people (Sam Shalabi, Anthony Seck, Alexandre St-Onge and Will Eizlini), with some guests from Strawberry and the inevitable Godspeed. Together they provide one of the most psychedelic and strange albums I've ever experienced. Acoustic and electric guitars, Muslimgauze styled tablas (no ordinary drums on this album), electronics, oud, scraped metal, bowed instruments, violins, saxophones, Tibetan bowls, and vocals on one track; all serve just one higher purpose: the ultimate psychedelic record. They succeeded. This is pure mind-altering music, it takes you all the way to Saturn and back again. In 'Mending holes through a wooden heart' tablas and guitars provide middle eastern style trance while the violin of Godspeed's Sophie Trudeau plays some patterns that could have been composed by Steve Reich. Other pieces remind me of early Pink Floyd (' Ummagumma', 'Piper at the gates of dawn') if they would have lived in India or Pakistan. Amon Duul also comes to mind. The only vocal track 'On the bowery' (which is sung by Strawberry's Deirdre Smith) fits perfectly between all the other instrumental drones, it has a very serene atmosphere. Shalabi Effect makes the perfect music for listening in a desolate field in the middle of the night, looking at all the stars. At the end of this record you are in a completely different state of mind. The hypnotic effect created by the Shalabi drones is really beyond any comparison. With 14 tracks in 131 minutes this record looks like a prententious monster, but every minute is necessary, no, essential for this music. The albumcover (some photographs from outer space, made by NASA telescopes) fits the music perfectly, and the whole package (like a double LP cover) together with the photographs results in the most beautiful one I've ever seen. If you live in Europe, this album is not easy to get. I ordered mine months ago (it was released summer 2000), and I only received it two weeks ago as a very expensive import album. Hopefully it will be released in Europe after all.
http://www.kindamuzik.net/recensie/shalabi-effect/shalabi-effect/158/
Meer Shalabi Effect op KindaMuzik: http://www.kindamuzik.net/artiest/shalabi-effect
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