Club Arak is a welcome Sydney phenomenon in these increasingly turbulent times – a celebration of ‘Otherness’ – an irregular queer Middle Eastern party drawing a mixed crowd often of over a thousand people. Arak was started by a group of friends including Gemma Yared, best known for her other Sydney institution, Club Kooky which has been running since 1995. This wonderful mix CD is a small sampling of the diversity of Arabic sounds that are mix at Arak put together by Monobrow (Gemma and David Lackey). All the tracks have been radically changed from their originals, sampled, chopped up, rearranged and so in many ways this is Monobrow album, sequenced as a DJ mix. Only one of the tracks is recognisable – Fourth Hour’s Zagora which appeared almost a decade a ago on the first Club Kooky compilation CD – and is only one of two tracks to revolve around a traditional Western beat. Elsewhere the rich rhythmic textures of drums, bells, chimes create a platform over which melodic elements – strings, vocals, flutes float. The final track, Baladi, even features the sweet vocals taken from a field recording in Jenin in Palestine. The limited release comes is lovely packaging and the only real complaint is the lack of detailed liner notes and, despite the substantial remixing and additional production work, it would be nice to know more about the sampled sources – if only to have something more to track down.
Sebastian Chan
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