Following May’s
Tarb-inspired folk release, ‘Two (Rivers in the Desert)', Lebanese musician and
singer, Naima Shalhoub, has released the second track from her upcoming album, Siphr.
In ‘Five
(The Calling)’, the California-based artist strips things down considerably,
with the first two thirds of the song carried by piano and bass. It provides a bedding
for Shalhoub’s powerful, soulful vocals, as she sings of following a path,
maybe even fate: “You may here a thousand voices calling you another way/But
you will know the heavenly sound calling your name.”
It’s the
last third of the track that really leaves an impression, however. With Ed
Baskerville on cello, Marcus Shelby on bass and Palestinian-American musician,
Excentrik, (who also contributed on the previous single) on guitar, the three
instruments quickly build to a crescendo, somehow existing both in unity and
discord. It twinkles and rumbles, with Shalhoub’s powerful whaling bringing
them together as a fourth instrument.
It’s difficult
track to pin down; you can hear elements of folk, jazz and the faint influence
of Tarb, while the instrumentation – particularly at the end – also seemingly
finding influence in the melodic modes of maqam.
50% of the proceeds for the single thins month will be donated to Egna Legna, a non-profit that works
on migrant domestic workers’ issues and general women’s issues in Lebanon and
Ethiopia, including the kafala system that has come under scrutiny in Lebanon this
year. This isn’t the first time that Shalhoub has combined her music with
greater causes. In 2015, she released a live LP that was recorded in
collaboration with a group of women whom she had been teaching a course on
music as an empowering tool.
Siphr will be her first studio album and
is scheduled for release in August.
