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Wherever It Falls
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New Music with Arab Roots

Apophatic listening -- listening to experimental music with hospitable ears, open to sounds both familiar and unfamiliar, welcoming their labyrinthine melodies and rhythms into your heart, knowing that the music cannot be fully understood, but trusting that the un-knowing can itself be an act of humble love, because in the listening without knowing, the voices of others, in some small way, can become part of your life, making space for a kinder, gentler world.  It's a spiritual practice best done on a daily basis, in the morning, with help from New Sounds Public Radio in New York: www.newsounds.org.
"Aynama-Rtama (Arabic - translated as Wherever It Falls) is a reflection of its time and environment. Recorded between Beirut in Cairo in 2014, it is a shape-shifting album that twists and turns when you least expect it. Innovative instrumentation, poignant words from avant-garde poets such as Sargon Boulos and Mahmoud Darwish, and the abstract worlds penned by the band’s vocalist Tamer Abu Ghazaleh coalesce to create an intense labyrinth of sounds and emotions. The startling synergy combined with the band’s wide ranging influences, giving birth to a soundscape that is at once familiar and unknown." 
from New Sounds

"Listen to works that combine the sounds of Arabic music with sounds of Western jazz, rock, and/or electronics, like Maurice Louca, Sabry Mosbah, Brickwork Lizards, and Epichorus.

Hear music by Tunisian musician Sabry Mosbah, from his record, Mes Racines (My Roots). Mosbah creates ritualistic trance-like music rooted in North Africa on “Rock Mjarred.” Then listen to the Cairo-based guitarist and pianist Maurice Louca and a 12-piece ensemble of players from Italy, Iraq, Sweden, Turkey, and Denmark. On his record, Elephantine, Arabic melody, African and Yemeni music come together with the spiritual jazz of John and Alice Coltrane, the sounds of minimalism, and trance music.
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Also, listen to music from Alif, a band named for the first letter of the Arabic alphabet. The musicians are from Egypt and Lebanon (including Maurice Louca) andthe song we’ll hear is a setting of a poem by Mahmoud Darwish. Then, hear a multi-textured gathering of Indo-Arabic-Brooklyn sounds by the New York group, Epichorus, a small ensemble of classical Arab instruments with western bass and electric organ and a singer who comes from the Indian classical tradition.

There’s also music by British-Iraqi singer and composer, Alya Marquardt, and the New York-based Shamash Ensemble. Theirs is a unique project fusing Iraqi folk music, contemporary jazz, human beatbox, improvisation and Arabic maqam.
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From the UK, hear music from the Oxford band Brickwork Lizards who combine classical Arab music with an appreciation for the pre-war jazz of the Ink Spots. The band’s eight members come from as wide-ranging musical experiences as Arabic classical ensembles (Oxford Maqam) and top-of-the-pop charting bands (Saint Etienne). Plus, listen to music from the Tunisian oud player, Anouar Brahem from his most recent small ensemble record, Blue Maqams, and more.  -Caryn Havlik

The Spiritual Alphabet developed
​by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat


Apophatic Listening: The Practice of Mystery Closer than "Mystery"
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"To be spiritual is to have an abiding respect for the great mysteries of life — the profound distinctiveness of other souls, the strange beauty of nature and the animal world, the ineffable complexity of our inner selves, the unfathomable depths of the Inexplicable One. The wisdom traditions challenge us to live within a cloud of unknowing.
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The first step in the practice of mystery is to cherish the baffling, curious, hidden, and inscrutable dimensions of your existence and the world around you. Live with paradoxes. Give up the idea that you can always "get it." Be suspicious of all the "ologies" that try to explain everything — from astrology to psychology to theology. Whenever you are honestly stumped by the existence of evil, injustice, or suffering, resist the temptation to ask "Why?" And never be afraid to admit "I don't know."
​Listening to new music with Arab roots, as combined with jazz and rock and electronic, requires letting sounds come to you, wherever they fall.  After hearing them you can interpret them, and here the spiritual alphabet of Mary Ann and Frederic Brussat can help.  With assistance from the alphabet you can try to find words for what you are hearing: mystery, hope, yearning, transformation, imagination, etc.  That is kataphatic listening.

But in the beginning you need just to listen, apophatically.  And as you listen you may discover that you haven’t words for what you are hearing, in part because are the sounds are both familiar and unfamiliar.  This liminal space – this space between the familiar and the unfamiliar – is where, for many, God is found.  God is not this, not that, both similar to, and different from, what we know.  This is true for other people, too.  And also for the hills and rivers, trees and stars.  All are both familiar and unfamiliar.  They can be experienced, but not “understood.” 

This is where new music with Arabic roots takes you.  It takes you to a place where you can say "I don't know."  It's mystery, to be sure, but also mystery beyond mystery, because close at hand, not far away.  Each piece is different, and the key is to hear the beauty of each and the differences from the others, without clinging too tightly to the ideas you might have abut them.  When you listen in this way, they become hymns to the mystery beyond mystery: the mystery that dwells within each of us, a mystery of feeling.
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​Poetic Addendum

Open Horizons