Our old friend George Christian has released a two-track album for Post Orientalism Music out of Berlin, Germany. Though some will bill this as experimental, I hear more of a wild psych-influenced space rock mixed together guitar improvisations that works wonderfully well. It is best to let George tell the story, the rest of which you can read at his Bandcamp release site:
“This recording was made under painfully difficult circumstances. In July 7th, my mother was hospitalized and, for a month, she fought a long battle against her second hemorrhagic stroke and pneumonia, that affected her lungs and kidneys and ultimately caused her death in August 8th, 2024. Two days before my birthday. And from July 6th to September 13th, my retuning to my latest girlfriend represented one of my most unnerving moments of my life, in spite of some moments of relief. That’s backstory of the whole album.
However, while the first track portrays the sadness after the departure of my mother, the second (recorded while my mother was at the hospital) is my wish of surpassing the adversities in spite of the challenges. So, this musical work is my way to not only portray how much such circumstances affected my spirit, but also tell musically of my own Arabic inheritance, that came mainly from my mother.
Well, the music is not compromised to such complex backstory. It’s a spiritual awakening in the shape of instrumental music, after all. I’m still missing her and crying silently for her, but I’m learning to survive that. She was the woman that was my first true love.
Among other things, she was a medium that channeled the gypsy that lived inside her in order to help several people. And she’s the real reason why I’m in the musical world. I am the musician that I am today thanks to her. In spite of the fact that she wasn’t a musician, she was from a family that had musical (and Gypsy) linkages. And the gypsy in her still dancing within myself…”
Que sua memória seja eterna, Dona Margarida.