Land Of Kush - Against The Day

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5...according to our Phil on Thu 02 Apr, 2009.

Constellation always bring me the shit. There's not many records on the label I've struggled with and most I've thoroughly enjoyed. Here's another one by Land Of Kush called Against The Day. It's a side project of Sam Shalabi who's a stalwarts of the Montreal avant garde music scene. He's played in Molasses and the Shalabi Effect to name just 2 things he's been involved with. Many more I can't be bothered to mention and you've all got internet connections so you can look further into his existence if you're really that interested. It's produced by Efrim from Godspeed as well so it fits in nicely with the whole Constellation sound. Musically it's not a million miles away from Black Ox Orkestar.... it's got that hasidic/ middle eastern vibe. Plenty of weird wibbly noises going on in between the strings and the psych sounding guitars. You can tell it's on Constellation but it's quite different for the label what with the whole middle eastern vibe. It works nicely actually... makes me want to shake my ass. Hefty amounts of percussion enable the whole ass moving thing to happen...... This is well smart!!

* Sam Shalabi is a musician and composer who has been creating and playing music in Montreal for the better part of 20 years.

* Unconstrained by genre, Sam’s musical history spans rock, jazz, free music, punk, and most things in-between. A highly truncated list of his projects includes Shalabi Effect, Detention, Molasses, and Nutsak, along with several releases under his own name courtesy Alien8 Recordings and Squintfucker Press.

* For the past five or so years Shalabi has also been writing and arranging sprawling compositions for large ensembles, the most recurring of which is Land Of Kush, modeled on classical orchestras from late Nasser-era Egypt. Incorporating some 30 Montreal players and vocalists, Kush includes string, brass, woodwinds, guitar, and percussion sections, in addition to electronics and Shalabi’s oud.

* Inspired by and named after the Thomas Pynchon’s novel Against the Day, the music is broken into five sections, named for the book’s chapters. The three primary movements are centred around solo vocalists (Jason Grimmer, Molly Sweeeney, Radwan Moumneh) who independently composed their own lyrics for the piece. In between vocal performances, Shalabi gives the orchestra ample opportunity to strut its stuff between verses, including solos and long instrumental passages that display Sam’s unique balance of composition and ’expository’ or improvisational instruction.

* Against The Day is a complex, intense, but accessible hour of hybrid, genre-defying music. The marriage of middle-eastern, north African and western modes and influences yields a recording that evades categorization. Constellation is proud to be releasing this new work by one of Montreal’s most challenging and prolific musical iconoclasts.

* CD comes in cardstock package with metallic and fluorescent inks, LP jacket is a 6-colour hand-printed silkscreen.

* Recorded and mixed by Efrim Menuck (A Silver Mt. Zion, Godspeed You! Black Emperor)

* For Fans Of: Black Star Arkestrar, Sun Ra, ASMZ

* Tracklisting: 01. The Light Over The Ranges 02. Iceland Spar 03. Bilocations 04. Against The Day 05. Rue du D’part

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