From: owner-harbinger-digest@smoe.org (harbinger-digest) To: harbinger-digest@smoe.org Subject: harbinger-digest V7 #27 Reply-To: harbinger@smoe.org Sender: owner-harbinger-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-harbinger-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk harbinger-digest Wednesday, July 17 2002 Volume 07 : Number 027 HARBINGER DIGEST To post, mail harbinger@smoe.org To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe harbinger-digest To get list info file, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: info harbinger-digest Today's Subjects: ---------------- (harbinger) Review [] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 13:24:22 +0300 From: Subject: (harbinger) Review I found this review on CDNOW. Is there some kind of anti-Paula Cole sentiment out there? Seems like a lot of reviews in the past couple of years have gone from glowing to personally mean-spritied. What is up with that? By the way, I haven't heard the duet. What do you guys think of it? Good, bad, indifferent? Thanks for the update Kenn. Steven ******** Astute pop fans may know him as Paula Cole's baby-daddy, but Moroccan ganawaa singer Hassan Hakmoun has been stunning Stateside audiences ever since he packed up his sintir for New York in 1987. A restless musical nomad, Hakmoun (along with his band, Zahar) leavens traditional Moroccan sounds with jazz, funk, rock, pop, and anything else that comes to hand -- often with mixed results. While that approach paid off on such landmark albums as 1993's Trance and 1995's The Fire Within, Hakmoun's latest, The Gift, falls flat in a too-blatant attempt to cross over. Not that the album is terrible -- it definitely has its moments. Such tracks as "Mimouna," "Lal Aisha," and "El Hedia" all demonstrate Hakmoun's masterful ability to make ganawaa's decidedly medieval rhythms accessible for Western ears (for the uninitiated, ganawaa is the hypnotic, African-inflected ritual music of Morocco's urban Sufi sects). Better still is Hakmoun's funky foray into secular Arabic music on his update of the classic wedding song "Layla Layla." These tracks all showcase Hakmoun at his best - soulful, a little bit mournful, and deeply affecting. Unfortunately, the rest of the album goes overboard with an overtly poppy sound that seems aimed squarely at curious Dave Mathews fans. The album's opener, "Syada Ana" boasts a cloying lite-funk groove that's so earnestly uplifting that it would sound perfect on one of Mathews' albums. Worse still is "Waterfall" which finds Hakmoun meandering over one of the most tepid versions of the venerable "Armegiddeon Time" riddim since Big Mountain decided to make roots reggae safe for the suburbs (again). Of course, the less said about "This Gift," Hakmoun's mawkish, out-of-place collaboration with his paramour Paula Cole, the better. While The Gift has a few flashes of brilliance, the album is for hardcore fans only. Others are advised to check out some of his earlier, better releases. Tom Pryor CDNOW Senior Editor World - ------------------------------ To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe harbinger Btw, if you are an AOL subscriber the above instruction will work for your EVERY time. Digest, further unsub and problems FAQ at: http://www.netaxs.com/~jgreshes/lists/harbinger.html ------------------------------ End of harbinger-digest V7 #27 ******************************