CD Reviews

Various artists | Open Strings: 1920s Middle Eastern Recordings

Honest Jon's (2009)

By DEVIN KING | May 6, 2009

4.0 Stars

Over the past year, Honest Jon's has released three compilations culled from more than 150,000 78s of early music from the EMI Hayes Archive: music from 1930s Baghdad, early West African music recorded in Britain, and a more general compilation that moved across country lines and the first half of the 20th century.

Stretched over two discs (or four LPs), this fourth release, Open Strings, draws parallels between string improvisation of 1920s Egypt, Iran, Iraq, and Turkey and such contemporary personalities as Sir Richard Bishop, MV and EE, and Six Organs of Admittance. The archival first half is mostly solo string players — anything from oud to fiddle maestros — engaged in the taqsim, a Middle Eastern improvisational method based on traditional modal themes. The second half is newly commissioned responses to the archival material.

Most of the latter connect Middle Eastern to Western modes: Rick Tomlinson turns in a surf-guitar piece, Charlie Parr a back-porch hoedown, and Bruce Licher a very-out-of-place Kid A–inspired electronic work. The archival material is stunning in its historical interest and musicianship; the responses are intriguing but unnecessary additions. I could have wished for a single disc at a cheaper price, or else two discs of archival material.

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