Reissue of Anouar Brahem�s 1995 album �Khomsa� featuring Richard Galliano, Jean Marc Larch� and Bechir Selmi, alongside ECM mainstays Palle Danielsson and Jon Christensen.
Brahem is recognised as a masterly interpreter of the Tunisian and pan-Islamic music traditions and as an exceptional improviser, able to build on those traditions. Inside his home country, however, Anouar also has a long history of working with film and theatre, and �Khomsa� revisits and quite freely reworks material he had written over the preceding decade for these contexts. �These pieces�, he notes, �have remained within me as the image of a collection of sensations quick to vibrate.� They emphasize Brahem�s compositional skills as much as his soloistic abilities.
The musicians brought together on Khomsa - the album�s dramaturgy calls for continually shifting permutations of the personnel - include three players Brahem has often worked with over the years (Selmi, Couturier and Larch�) and three whom he encountered here for the first time (Galliano, Danielsson and Christensen).
Brahem continues to reveal new aspects of his oud playing on Khomsa. If �Claquent les voiles�, a duet with Danielsson, intensifies the Andalusian strain hinted at on the Barzakh album, �En robe d�olivier� suggests West African colours, the oud taking on some of the bright, percussive quality of the kalimba. In these pieces, as on his subtle, extended solo on �L�infini jour�, Brahem - who is often praised for his virtuosity - shows his ability to transcend mere �technique� to get to the essence, the heart, of the music.
Anouar Brahem: oud
Richard Galliano: accordion
Fran�ois Couturier: piano, synthesizer
Jean Marc Larch�: soprano saxophone
Bechir Selmi: violin
Palle Danielsson: double-bass
Jon Christensen: drums
