It’s a minor tragedy that Jisr have not made their debut album available as a download on Bandcamp, but you can find it over at La Boîte à Musique and Turtle Records in Belgium, Deejay.de and Decks in Germany and surely other fine record shops near you, though I’d pick this up quickly as it’s running out of print everywhere I look.
To the music. This is ecstatic spiritual jazz infused with Kosmische Musik, odd progressive and improvisational rock (think Embryo and Dissidenten, especially since the legendary Roman Bunka is involved in this disc playing oud and guitar), but the star of this album is definitely Dr. Mohcine Ramdan on daf, gembri and vocals. He simply lets loose with heavy interstellar grooves, and is superbly supported by some of the finest musicians in the German improv and World Music scene.
As I understand it, Sound Voyage Records handled the vinyl production, and CDs can be obtained through the sublime Enja Records. My goodness, this simply puts one into another world!
