Azam Ali and Vas: a good prescription for the end-of-weekend letdown.

Dec 11, 2006

Today was particularly obnoxious. I was feeling gripey and bloated (...so that’s why I kept having weird foot cramps yesterday…), the evidence for new-boss-dude’s lack of cluefulness continues to mount, I was panicking about finances, I’m having trouble understanding why my agency wants to charge me money for medical insurance even when I’m not eligible, and this Friday I meet with landlord-rep about trying to renew my lease…at a time when the complex is going month-to-month with everyone so that they’ll more easily be able to raise rents as the local economy improves.

In short, I needed comfort music.

I want the new Lisa Gerrard CD, but none of the local music stores have it in stock. (Dammit.) Instead, I found Offerings by Vas and the solo disc Elysium for the Brave by Azam Ali, the lead vocalist of Vas. I very much enjoy In the Garden of Souls, and was hoping for more cool new stuff. Sadly, Offerings does not seem quite as enjoyable to me. There’s more music, less of Ali’s ethereal, sinuous vocals. I listened to about half the disc before deciding to sell it this weekend at Rasputin’s, down the street.

I opened Elysium for the Brave and put it into the player, hoping for something better. I was concerned when I saw lyrics, and read: “Waiting for the rain / for the skys lamenting / all around silence / has its roots sunk deep / my longing lingers / my tresses twist / but in my isolation / all truth is empty”. The first track started out with just a hair more techno-electronica sound than Vas (a bit like Delerium lite, in the first two measures) and I began to worry that the disc might just be a bit too go-cry-emo-kid. Still, I reasoned, I had had a bad day. I would at least give each CD a few more complete runs, just to make sure I that I disliked them because I disliked them, not simply because they weren’t what I had expected or what I wanted at that moment.

It’s been two hours. Elysium is good, and I’m keeping it. I may get more of Ali’s music — in fact, I found a collaboration between her and Niyaz which promises to be very interesting; and (lucky me!) Amazon’s offering that disc and one of Ali’s solo albums at a discount if they’re purchased together.

That’s it. I have no willpower. I purchased Vas’ Feast of Silence, Azam Ali’s Portals of Grace, the album by Niyaz, and something that looked interesting: Indian techno-dance-trance by a duo called MIDIval PunditZ.

Keywords: | work | music | Middle Eastern music | Azam Ali |
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