Omar El Shariyi ‎– Oriental Music

REISSUE OF CULT ALBUM!

LABEL SAYS ...  ‘Oriental Music’ is pushing all the right buttons with El Shariyi’s flighty, winking leads accompanied by percolated rhythms and strings in the suavest grooves. Its six instrumentals transport us to Cairo in the mid-‘70s, back when the artist was responsible for shaking up modern Egyptian music, trimming the ‘70s trend for long songs into shorter forms inspired by Western pop musics, but still completely Egyptian, Arabic in tone and feel. 

El Shariyi was blind from a young age, but discovered a prodigious talent for music, taking him to the Hadley School for the Blind in America, where he quickly learned piano, oud and composition. He would end up playing bars back in Cairo, against the wishes of his upper middle class family, but this lead to local, and national renown, becoming a prolific writer for established Egyptian artists, film and TV soundtracks. Notably his talent lead Yamaha Corp. to come knocking for help in creating new electronic keyboards that handle quarter tone.

Long out of print on vinyl, this album is a real gem, brimming over with mesmerising melodies and deftly accompanied by percussion and strings in a way that has lost none of its gently intoxicating feel and classy lustre over the past 40 odd years.

Tracklist