Faddah

This album is full of sophisticated, thrilling performance pieces; the jewel in crown surely has to be the dazzling upbeat title track "Faddah". Having choreographed a dance to this piece myself, I did find Hossam's notes very enlightening. What I love about this track is although it's very flashy and full of drama and excitement (the perfect track for showing off to!), it's structured and divided into the various styles and rhythms very clearly and precisely, making it an extremely easy piece of music to work with using Hossam's notes; but at the same time it has plenty of action going on in the music - the intro rhythm in particular has a wonderful zaar crossed with the malfuf rhythm that was for me just electrifying. I love the Saidi section that uses the magrouna instead of the mizmar; all the different instruments, rhythms and styles of music blend together beautifully and it has a very exciting Zaar finale that you could use to surprise your audience with. This is really something special for intermediates to get their hips stuck into. "Khatwet El Ghazaalah" is a slower paced piece with some interesting new rhythms and variations on existing rhythms that are combined with an exquisite blend of orchestration and instrumentation; it would make a sophisticated and challenging performance piece for the more advanced dancer. "Tublet Hossam Hattra-Assna" is a song with vocals the lyrics were written and given to Hossam as a gift; the melody has a classical feel and this song is a lot of fun for everyone to dance to. I particularly love the drama and the powerful tension in the introduction of "Sowar El Habibah and the wonderful violin solo; the main body of the composition is very interesting in the way that it combines the Saidi rhythm with different individual instruments, and I particularly love the brilliant conga rhythm section in this piece (I bet you could do something really interesting with that bit!) ; this would make a lovely performance piece for intermediates and above; again like Faddah, the musical definitions between the rhythms and instruments are clearly defined and with Hossam's notes this is another great piece of music to work with. "Mahasin Essodaf" is a wonderfully upbeat classical piece that has a wonderful baladi feeling in the accordion introduction and later sections along with some really exciting qanun, this would make an interesting choreography for intermediates and above. The pace of the album slows down with "Wesh El Fagr"; in this piece maybe could do something more flowing and possibly you could incorporate a tasteful piece of floorwork into your routine with this piece. The album finishes beautifully with two clean, powerful and beautifully structured short tabla solos. There is lots of very danceable music on this CD. Highly recommended for intermediate and advanced dancers.