IMN : Updates for Idan Raichel Project

Confirmed Tourdates As Of May 3rd, 2013

IMN

October 9th, 2013: Fox Tucson Theatre Tucson, AZ USA [The Idan Raichel Project]
October 10th, 2013: Royce Hall Los Angeles, CA USA [The Idan Raichel Project]
October 12th, 2013: Nourse Theatre San Francisco, CA USA [The Idan Raichel Project]
October 13th, 2013: Grand Sierra Theatre Reno, NV USA [The Idan Raichel Project]
October 15th, 2013: Gates Concert Hall Denver, CO USA [The Idan Raichel Project]
October 20th, 2013: Rialto Theatre Atlanta, GA USA [The Idan Raichel Project]
October 22nd, 2013: Lisner Auditorium Washington, DC USA [The Idan Raichel Project]
October 23rd, 2013: Sandler Center for the Performing Arts Virginia Beach, VA USA [The Idan Raichel Project]
October 25th, 2013: Landmark on Main Street Port Washington, NY USA [The Idan Raichel Project]
October 26th, 2013: Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts Storrs, CT USA [The Idan Raichel Project]
October 27th, 2013: Beacon Theatre New York, NY USA [The Idan Raichel Project]
October 28th, 2013: Zoellner Arts Center Bethlehem, PA USA [The Idan Raichel Project]
October 29th, 2013: Fine Arts Center Amherst, MA USA [The Idan Raichel Project]
October 30th, 2013: Maxcy Hall Sports Complex Potsdam, NY USA [The Idan Raichel Project]

Quarter To Six

IMN

May 1st, 2013

The Idan Raichel Project Returns With the New Album Quarter To Six

A Soundtrack For The Crossroads Of Life
Out in the US & Canada on May 21st, 2013

“This one-man Middle East peace accord makes music that is an ambitious celebration of multicultural diversity. The ethnic elements are cleverly rewired with modern grooves to create an ambient journey that thrillingly bridges the traditional and the modern.” – The Times (London, UK)

To say Israeli keyboardist and composer Idan Raichel has been busy since The Idan Raichel Project’s last album Within My Walls was released would be an understatement. In the past four years, Raichel has released a 3-disc live album set, written numerous songs and toured with GRAMMY winner India.Arie, performed at the Nobel Peace Prize awards ceremony, co-written a song calling for racial harmony with Israeli President and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shimon Peres, performed for President Obama and family at the Kennedy Center on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, performed at the ceremony inaugurating the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in Washington DC, sold out shows at Radio City Music Hall and other major venues worldwide, toured India, South America and Africa and released the highly praised Tel Aviv Session album with Malian guitarist Vieux Farka Touré.

In that prolific span, Idan Raichel somehow managed to find the time to create perhaps the most enchanting Idan Raichel Project album to date, Quarter To Six. The new album will be released by Cumbancha on May 21, 2013 with a North American tour bringing the complete lineup of diverse musicians to major stages starting in October.

The album title Quarter To Six, is based on a quote by the influential Israeli writer/actor/singer Yossi Banai, who passed away in May 2006. In one of his works Banai describes seeing his mother staring silently out a window. With concern Banai asks if she is doing well, and his mother responds, “It feels like it is quarter to six. It’s going to be dark soon.” This deceptively simple statement resonated with Raichel who states, “This quote really affected me. It’s a way to describe the end of life. People learn to accept this time of the day, to come to terms with their life, in peace. And I thought of this moment in my life as also an interesting junction, a crossroads.” Raichel adds, “After ten years with the Project, I feel we have reached a time of change and reflection, a transition period, both musically and personally.”

While reflections on the end of life are not generally considered uplifting, the songs on Quarter to Six explore the positive aspects of personal reflection, self-analysis and acceptance that these moments of transition can provide. They comment on the emotional resonance of seeing your life as it is, and comparing it to how you dreamt it would be. “I don’t see it as depressing, when I am thinking of this moment Banai called quarter to six. I’m thinking that if the day was a lifetime, I’ve had an amazing day. When I started this day I just wanted to make music, I never dreamt I would end up where I am now.”

Musically, Quarter To Six differs from previous albums by the Idan Raichel Project by using more acoustic arrangements and a more subtle approach to the songs. The album was written in bits and pieces over the past four years and Raichel describes it as having two parts. Raichel explains, “There are sixteen songs, so you might think it’s long, but once you play it from A to Z it moves fast. I conceived of it in two parts so it would be more of a journey for the listener. It’s one CD but halfway through it takes a short break before it continues.” That pause is representative of the album’s overall theme of taking a moment for reflection.

The Idan Raichel Project has distinguished itself with adventurous collaborations with artists of different generations and cultural backgrounds and Quarter to Six includes up-and-coming Israeli singers as well as guests from around the world. “Sabe Deus (God Knows)” features the enchanting vocals of Portugal’s Ana Moura, who joins Idan in Hebrew then moves on to Portuguese to deliver the heart-wrenching, fado-flavored melody. Vieux Farka Touré, a Malian guitarist and Raichel’s partner in the acclaimed Touré-Raichel Collective, guests on the soulful “Mon Amour (My Love).” Palestinian-Israeli singer Mira Awad joins the Project on “Ana Ana wa Enta Enta (I Am What I Am)” an Arabic-language song that demonstrates how Raichel uses music to transcend political divisions.

The song “In Stiller Nacht (In A Quiet Night)” features the remarkable German counter-tenor Andreas Scholl. A number of years ago, The Idan Raichel Project was the first Israeli band to produce hit songs in Arabic and Amharic on Israeli national radio, and Raichel looks forward to this collaboration with Scholl as an opportunity to break Israeli mainstream radio’s aversion to German language songs.

Raichel has also become known for bringing attention to new Israeli talents, and he invites a number of new singers to participate on the album. The closing track “Or Ka’ze (A Light Such As This)” features a talented young Orthodox Israeli singer named Ishai Ribo who needed to get permission from his Rabbi to take part because it is generally forbidden in Orthodox tradition for a male singer to be included on an album that also includes songs performed by women.

With the release of Quarter To Six, Raichel is excited to see the reaction of listeners all over the world. “I always say that once you release an album the songs are not yours anymore,” comments Idan. “If you’re lucky enough it will become other people’s. You are the writer, you have the credit, but it’s not yours anymore, it becomes the soundtrack of other people’s lives.”

For more information or to arrange interviews, please contact:
Ryan Romana at 415-385-1784 or ryan@pressjunkiepr.com

Listen to tracks off the album here

Idan Raichel: The Egyptian Officers Who Were Gentlemen

IMN

March 28th, 2013

From The Times of Israel

The Egyptian officers who were gentlemen
By: Idan Raichel

About half a year ago while on a business trip to the U.S., I stayed at a roadside motel in the middle of nowhere in California. Around evening time I had nothing to do there, so I would go down to the motel courtyard to read or just relax. On the first evening I overheard two men speaking to each other in Arabic. They were around 25 or 28 years old or so. I asked them who they were and where they were from and they said they were officers in the Egyptian Army and were in the US for training.

I told them I was from Israel and they balked a little and kept their distance. Another five or eight officers joined them and we started chatting about Israel, which they had never visited, and said that considering their position, they probably never will visit.

They had never spoken to an Israeli before, and were curious to know about the cultural and daily life of Tel Aviv. I felt I was talking with the cream of Egyptian society. I can’t really explain why, but these conversations were triggering in me the same emotions that I feel when I talk with Israeli Navy Seals or Special Forces: a group of men with deep sense of honor.

To read more click here

Intimate Preview of Idan Raichel's New Album "Quarter to Six"

IMN

March 20th, 2013

Idan Raichel shows off songs from new album
By: Yoni Cohen

Musician tells stories behind songs from new album “Quarter to Six” at intimate preview gig at Tel Aviv Port.

Idan Raichel took time out of his busy schedule on Monday to perform a few select songs from The Idan Raichel Project’s latest album “Quarter to Six” at the Beit Hayotzer center at the Tel Aviv Port. The ever calm and collected singer took his usual position at a grand piano and then proceeded to tell assembled members of the press the stories behind the songs on the latest album.

Raichel spoke about the journey he was on while making the album and about the importance of finding the right people with whom to collaborate. He explained that the album focuses on that special time of the day which symbolizes for the singer the crossroads in life that “aren’t here but aren’t quite there yet.” As an example of such a moment, he mentioned a Friday evening when a mother is waiting for Shabbat to commence and that special time when the week is ending but we are still waiting to rest.

He gave heartfelt performances of two singles that have already been released from the album, “Achshav Karov” (Close Now) and “Belayla” (At Night), which have received widespread praise.

To read more click here

Idan Raichel: The Groove is Global

IMN

February 15th, 2013

From Cleveland Jewish News

The Idan Raichel Project
For Raichel, the groove is global
By: Carlo Wolff

Idan Raichel, a composer, singer and keyboardist who is a superstar in his native Israel, will make his Cleveland debut Saturday, Feb. 16, fronting a seven-piece band conversant – make that eloquent – in many languages.

On the basis of Idan Raichel Project videos and MP3s, the show should rock: the dreadlocked, casually attired Raichel lays folkloric lyrics over pulsating rhythm tracks, often with an electronic tinge. His voice, rough-hewn and warm, floats on grooves that braid Middle Eastern, Latin and African strains.

In a telephone conversation and subsequent email, the Tel Aviv resident suggested he aims to bring his music – part jam band, part jazz, resolutely ethnic and just as resolutely modern – to places he cannot yet enter for political reasons. For now, he said, he is the first “to bring the world music in Israel to the mainstream.”

To read more click here

Idan Raichel Sings of Home and Love Without Borders

IMN

February 7th, 2013

From Vancouver Sun

Idan Raichel Sings of Home and Love Without Borders
By: Francois Marchand

Israeli singer-songwriter and musician Idan Raichel and his Project are better known for their performances that blend traditional Israeli music with African rhythms and Eastern European influences.

The genre-bending group doesn’t shy away from crossing borders and breaking boundaries, reaching out to Palestinians, crossing over into Ethiopia, and joining forces with Mali’s Vieux Farka Toure.

Raichel’s latest album Travelling Home is a triple offering of live performances, rarities and new songs, and it encapsulates the band’s many travels and the stories associated with them.

Yet for Raichel, as for many Jewish people around the globe, home will always be Israel no matter how much time he spends on the road with his band.

To read more click here

Idan Raichel on WNYC's The Take Away

IMN

January 23rd, 2013

From WNYC

An Israeli Musician Reflects on His Country’s Politics Through Song
Interviewer: John Hockenberry

Today is election day in Israel, the end of a contentious campaign season on fraught political territory.

As domestic issues such as job creation and immigration tended to obscure foreign policy questions in the 2012 U.S. presidential campaign, Israelis have focused their election season on the country’s debt problem, and whether Israeli Arabs and the ultra-Orthodox should have to serve in the military.

Few politicians have addressed the Palestinian conflict, or Israel’s difficult relationship with its neighbors, but Idan Raichel, the Israeli singer-songwriter behind the Idan Raichel Project, attempts to reach his country’s enemies through music.

The Idan Raichel Project is a multi-ethnic, multilingual collaboration of ninety musicians, including many Israeli immigrants from Yemen, Ethiopia and South Africa. Raichel says that the group’s mission is to “bring the voices of the minorities to the Israeli mainstream.”

As in the United States, immigration continues to shape Israeli culture. “Every ten or fifteen years, “ Raichel explains, “there is a new immigration that changes the face of Israeli society.” Raichel’s music reflects those very diverse voices.”

To read more click here

Idan Raichel on CBS New York's 'The Couch'

IMN

January 15th, 2013

from CBS News

Idan Raichel on CBS New York’s ‘The Couch’

Israeli pop star Idan Raichel sits down on CBS New York’s ‘The Couch’ to discuss The Idan Raichel Project. Watch the interview and a solo performance of Min Nhar Li Mshiti (From The Day You Left) here

Idan Raichel Project Transcending Boundaries

IMN

December 17th, 2012

From The Hindu

Transcending Boundaries
By M. Pavitra

Israeli singing sensation Idan Raichel talks about the world that surrounds his music:

In a country like Israel, which usually makes news due to conflict, Idan Raichel’s music comes as a pleasant surprise. The Israeli singer-songwriter and musician who is on a concert tour in India will be performing in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Kolkata. A blend of electronics, traditional Hebrew texts, West Asian and Ethiopian music, the Idan Raichel Project has garnered worldwide appreciation for its distinctive style and composition.

Although the Idan Raichel Project started ten years ago, Idan’s tryst with music goes back to the time when he was nine. He further honed his skills in high school where he learned jazz after which he was conscripted into the Israeli army for three years. “It’s a mandatory service for men and women aged 18 to 21 to serve their country, though I would’ve done it even if it was not mandatory,” he adds. But music continued to follow him there as well. “You can perform no matter where you are. I loved to perform for the army men and while doing so I felt that soldiers are the most honest audience after children,” says Idan.

After serving in the army he joined a boarding school where he worked as a counsellor for the immigrants and troubled. “The Israeli society is all about immigrants, hence it’s a melting pot of different cultures. There were kids from East Africa, Ethiopia and Moscow, however, the sad part was that teenagers there are facing an identity crisis.” During his stint as a counsellor, he used his music as therapy which, he feels, greatly influenced the kids. Having recorded songs with 95 singers and musicians for his Idan Raichel Project, he said that his songs are “influenced by each and every person who worked on that project.” Talking about Indian music, he says, “Indian music was always classical, pop and Bollywood, but it was Late Pandit Ravi Shankar along with A.R. Rahman with his Slumdog Millionaire who brought Indian music to the fore.”

When asked what his type of music would be, he chuckled and said that world music is his favourite. “There is something about each and every place. Be it late Pandit Ravi Shankar for India or late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan for Pakistan or John Coltrane for America, they all contributed their part to the world music, which is what I like the most,” he said.

Read the full article here

REVIEW: The Touré-Raichel Collective - The Tel Aviv Sessions

IMN

September 21st, 2012

from World Music

TOURE-RAICHEL COLLECTIVE – “THE TEL AVIV SESSION” (CUMBANCHA)

Take two world music virtuosos – one a Jewish-Israeli pianist, the other a Muslim-Malian guitarist – put them together for one day for an impromptu jam and see what comes out. Now, those of you who have ever tried capturing the magic of improvised music and spontaneous creativity will know just how hit and miss this can be. Just because you put two maestros together doesn’t mean that a masterpiece will result. The conjuring up of such elusive moments of artistic passion (what the Spanish flamenco performers refer to as ‘duende’ or the Welsh as ‘hwyl’) is something born of the moment, that almost accidental crossing of time, place, personalities, atmosphere, skills, communication, tension, relaxation and inspiration that creates the spark that fires the soul…

Just under two years ago the Israeli keyboardist Idan Raichel and the Malian guitarist Vieux Farka Touré came together for one day after a performance the night before, which had inspired them to want to record something in the small window of opportunity they had. There were no major expectations of the session, Vieux’s manager Eric Herman of Modiba thinking “alright, this is fun, a nice little jam”. They sat down in a small recording studio in south Tel Aviv set up like a living room and recorded whatever came to them.

Accompanied by Israeli bassist, Yossi Fine and the Malian calabash player Souleymane Kane the four musicians played for just three hours. After the first three pieces, Herman was thinking “Maybe there will be something here we can use”. Five or six numbers later there was enough for an entire album.

It also became clear to the participants that something special was occurring. Herman describes it thus: “Because there were no expectations, it was really the most fluid and pleasant recording experience. They all just played until they got tired. … What struck me was the nakedness of it. So many people agonise over all the aspects of a recording, everything is premeditated in virtually all recording sessions that I’ve been to. And this was entirely freeform – an open exchange”.

The result of this Tel Aviv session is the basis of this album – acoustic, spontaneous and entirely improvised. And it’s a keeper.

As hinted at above this is not a ‘normal’ album – it’s a recording of a jam session essentially – and this explains a certain uniformity of mood and tone throughout, something which is both its strength and its weakness. Strength because it ties it all together – the exploratory nature of the numbers, the calm, the ebb and flow of musical ideas and motifs; weakness because I occasionally wanted something that stood out as quite different from rest – more light and shade between tracks (even though there is plenty of light and shade within each track).

However, as I’ve listened to the album again and again, this seems less and less important. There’s far more here than meets the ear at first. It is definitely one of those works that repays renewed listenings as you begin to notice fresh layers revealing themselves, new juxtapositions of sounds and melodies, conversations you might have missed… It is one for quiet reflection, for mood immersion and musical absorption. You need to spend time with “The Tel Aviv Session”. Don’t expect it to reveal all its secrets at one. But if you have the patience it’s well worth the digging. There’s gold in them thar hills.

Vieux Farka Touré, in my opinion, is better on this album than on his last one (“The Secret”) – he just feels infinitely more relaxed and liberated. All the musicians are excellent and feel very comfortable with their parts. But it’s Idan Raichel’s influence that I’m enjoying the most of all. With a free-ranging mind and countless musical colours he appears completely in control of his instrument and it becomes a direct expression of his musical will. I love that in a musician. In fact, he reminds me in that sense of the Japanese pianist Ryoko Nuruki.

Some years ago Peter Gabriel and Realworld made an album called “Big Blue Ball” on which many musicians collaborated. It was described if memory serves me correct as a fine wine that would mature with age. Well, for me the jury’s definitely still out on that one (talented though the individual musicians were). However, I really feel that the epithet should apply to Raichel and Touré’s “The Tel Aviv Sessions”. Just like the obvious comparison with Vieux’s father’s “Talking Timbuktu” (with Ry Cooder) or an album like Surinder Sandhu’s “The Fictionist”, this bottle could be one for the bodega…

Pour yourself a glass and sit back.

Read the full article “here”: http://www.worldmusic.co.uk/toure-raichel_collective_the_tel_aviv_session_c

REVIEW: BBC - The Tel Aviv Sessions

IMN

September 19th, 2012

from BBC

BBC Review: The Touré-Raichel Collective – The Tel Aviv Sessions
Martin Longley

The players here set about forging exciting new traditions.

When leading his own band, guitarist Vieux Farka Touré has lately been getting increasingly deeper into the Hendrixian electric zone, his Malian desert roots steadily saturated by rock’n’roll seepage.

This project reveals a different aspect, as Touré comes closer again to his heritage, concentrating on the acoustic guitar. He’s now sounding nearer to the musical spirit of his departed father, Ali Farka.

The other half of this album’s fresh equation is the Israeli keyboardist Idan Raichel, whose reputation is still somewhat underground outside his homeland and probably bigger in the USA than Europe. Even though this collaboration is equally billed, the tunes mostly sound closer to a Malian source. It’s an unlikely teaming, forged out of a chance meeting between the two artists on the road.

Raichel is the producer of this improvised session, which lasted just three hours. The participants began in a jamming frame, then subsequently refined the results into repeatable tunes, arranging on the hoof. They don’t sound improvised, but these linear pieces were created in totally spontaneous fashion, with only a few subsequent overdubs. Raichel and Touré were joined by Israeli bassist Yossi Fine and Malian percussionist Souleymane Kane on calabash. Raichel favours the acoustic piano, frequently preparing its strings or dampening them with his fingers. Several of the pieces work in a subliminal vocal humming, thickening the textures into a dense sound. When Raichel starts off Experience, the track possessing a noticeably Middle Eastern vibration, his style is reminiscent of Maurice El Médioni’s Jewish-Algerian orientalism.

Guest Frédéric Yonnet plays harmonica on Touré, setting off at a sprightly pace. He gets a solo bridge, accompanied solely by minimal percussion, growling into his harp and flapping his fingers. Another guest, the singer Cabra Casay, takes the lead on Ane Nahatka, with Raichel moving to electric piano.

Many fusion adventures such as this one have found success in recent years, as artists increasingly traverse the globe, becoming authentically grounded in each other’s previously alien sounds, styles, cultures and religions. The players here use that joyful experience to forge exciting new traditions.

Read the full article here

INTERVIEW: Idan Raichel on The Toure-Raichel Collective

IMN

September 10th, 2012

from Think Africa Press

An Interview with Idan Raichel

The Israeli pianist discusses his latest collaboration with Vieux Farka Touré.
BY Clyde MacFarlane

When Ali Farka Touré travelled to Los Angeles to record with Ry Cooder, it was very much an exploration of the remarkable similarities between these two guitarists. Ali, a Malian, had frequently seen his music categorised as ‘blues’, so this album was in essence a reverse roots trip.

Pick a random track off 1994’s Talking Timbuktu and Ali and Ry’s guitar parts sound indistinguishable. Something so instinctively human as to pluck a string under tension, they demonstrated, predates the ancestral displacement of America’s musical history. It was perhaps the Grammy award-wining quality of Talking Timbuktu that inspired Ali’s son Vieux to embark on his own cross-cultural project.

An impromptu meeting:
Vieux met his eventual collaborator, Israeli pianist Idan Raichel, by chance whilst waiting in an airport. Where else does modern life present a better opportunity to bump into someone suitably unfamiliar? “Crazy hippy” was Vieux’s first impression. From Idan’s perspective, Vieux Farka Touré, presumably sitting by his tell-tale guitar case, was more than just a fellow musician. “I grew up listening to the great Ali Farka Touré”, Idan tells Think Africa Press proudly. “My piano playing is hugely influenced by Talking Timbuktu. Later I’d invent piano parts to Ali’s earlier works, and try to imitate the kora as closely as possible.”

In November 2010, Vieux travelled to Israel to record The Tel Aviv Session with Idan. Whereas Talking Timbuktu saw Malian and American blues melt into one, The Tel Aviv Session could have been recorded in Mali by an all-Malian band. This is in every way a compliment to Idan’s excellent imitation of the kora, a traditional West African harp, made by plucking the piano strings with the appropriate speed and grace. Idan explained why absorbing influences comes naturally to an Israeli.

“With the dominance of Vieux’s guitar and the fantastic calabash playing of Souleymane Kane, the session had a deep Malian feel. I see my role as an artist taking music from all over the world and giving it a twist. I don’t see the project as Israeli music but more a collaboration with an Israeli musician. This is the essence of who we are and what we do in Israel. We have a recent history of immigration from all over the world so it’s difficult to define Israeli food, Israeli cinema or Israeli music. Every few years there is a new immigration that changes the face of our society. The Tel Aviv Session is Malian music as interpreted by an Israeli who instinctively knows how to blend sounds and emphasise melodies.”

The result is the most like Ali that Vieux has sounded to date, thanks largely to a decision to go completely acoustic. Without Vieux’s trademark electric riffs, Kane’s calabash is indeed fantastic; from the hypnotic opener ‘Azawade’, the session is a flawless display of Malian percussion. Also present is Israeli bassist Yossi Fine, who produced Vieux’s second album Fondo.

“With acoustic music there is nothing to hide,” says Idan. “The album sounds like what it is – four musicians sitting in a living room having a jam session at 2am. It was a bold concept for Vieux, as he always records with an electric band. He’s been toying with the idea of going acoustic for many years and I’m glad to have led him in this direction. Going acoustic gave us a higher dynamic range to explore.”

A cross-cultural association:
A late highlight to the album is ‘Ane Nahatka’, featuring Tigrit vocals from the Ethiopian-Jewish singer Cabra Casey. Her offering represents a passion that goes back a long way for Idan.

“I worked as a counsellor in a boarding school for Israeli immigrants. There were many Ethiopian-Jewish youths who had come from Addis Ababa or from refugee camps in Ethiopia’s Begemder region. I saw how they retained the music of Ethiopia to keep alive their identity as new immigrants in Israel. I would walk along the little streets around our boarding school and this strange, incredibly loud music would come from open windows above.”

“In class I asked the Ethiopians where I could hear this music live. They took me to some concerts in a downtown area of Tel Aviv. It was just a magical world for me and its soundtrack captured my heart. I was hugely impressed by Ethiopia’s great vocalists like Mahmoud Ahmed and Gigi and their acoustic instruments like the krar and the masenqo. Cabra Casey is the lead singer for my main group The Idan Raichel Project, and both Vieux and I were extremely grateful when she agreed to take part in The Tel Aviv Session.”

The Tel Aviv Session was released by Cumbancha Records on the September 3.

Read Think Africa Press’ interviews with Vieux Farka Touré here

Read the full article here

REVIEW: The Tel Aviv Session by The Touré-Raichel Collective

IMN

September 10th, 2012

from Music-News

The Toure-Raichel Collective: The Tel Aviv Session
By: Andy Snipper

Vieux Farka Toure and Idan Raichel met in transit in a German airport. Raichel knew of Farka Toure but although the Malian had never heard of the Israeli musician they struck an immediate musical recognition and this recording stems from that meeting and the subsequent show that they played in Tel Aviv.

This is one of the best albums I have heard this year, in any genre or form and it even ranks with the Vincent Segal/Ballake Sissoko ‘Chamber Music’ album of 2010– it really is that good! The collaboration between these two geniuses strikes deeply to the soul of the listener.

Viuex Farka Toure is a Malian, son of the legendary Ali Farka Toure and a world superstar in his own right. Idan Raichel is an Israeli keyboardist, classically trained and a huge pop superstar in Israel. Toure is steeped in the Malian musical tradition but takes it onwards in new ways and completely individual in style.
Raichel heads up the Idan Raichel Project merging sounds from all over the Middle East and Eastern Europe into a multicultural amalgamation that is completely fresh and original.

After the concert in Tel Aviv in 2010 the pair retired to a small studio with Yossi Fine on bass and Souleyman Kane on calabash to jam the rest of the evening and this is the result, all acoustic and improvised with some later overdubs.

Anyone who is familiar with Toure’s style will recognise the precise finger-picking on the guitar but to hear it matched and challenged by Raichel’s keyboards is quite stunning but on a track such as ‘Hawa’ where Toure leads and you don’t realise that Raichel’s piano is even there until it suddenly moves to the fore and the mind suddenly flicks on “it was there all along!”. The subtlety of both of their playing is such that anytime you feel you have a handle on one person’s playing you begin to hear the underpinning of the other. As a meeting of two brilliant musicians this shows just what can be achieved by subsuming your ego and allowing the strength of the collective to work for you.

The joy in the music is palpable; as a listener I can only imagine the breadth of the smiles on the musicians faces but I can hear it. The power is there too, no explosions but all the power of musicians playing their hearts and minds. These guys are challenging each other and brining something out of the other that they never knew existed – and we, the listeners, get to peek in; that is joy!

If there is a better album released this year I will be shocked – this is one of the moments that will be around for years and bring smiles to every listener who discovers it – and rediscovers it next time they listen.

Read the full article here

REVIEW: The Touré-Raichel Collective - The Tel Aviv Sessions

IMN

September 10th, 2012

from The Guardian

The Touré-Raichel Collective: The Tel Aviv Sessions
By Robin Denselow

A gently mesmeric set in which the Malian guitarist Vieux Farka Touré teams up with Israeli keyboard player Idan Raichel for a series of improvised, largely instrumental pieces in which both musicians quietly extend their range. Raichel has become something of a hero across the Middle East for his adventurous fusion of Israeli, Arab and African themes, though his band, the Idan Raichel Project, sometimes veer towards classy global easy-listening. Here, he allows the African guitar hero to dominate many of the tracks, with Touré moving away from his driving, electric-guitar blues-rock style to concentrate on laid-back acoustic riffs and improvised flurries that at times echo the work of his legendary father, Ali Farka Touré. Raichel adds sensitive piano embellishments, and the duo are backed by insistent bass and calabash percussion, with added harmonica work and vocals from Ethiopian-Israeli singer Cabra Casey. Ideal for late-night listening or meditation.

Read the full article here

Idan Raichel Among 50 People Shaping the Culture of the Middle East

IMN

August 13th, 2012

from huffpost.com

50 People Shaping The Culture Of The Middle East (SLIDESHOW)

Even as world headlines from the Middle East focus on upheaval and violence, the region’s culture continues to thrive.

Combining seemingly disparate sounds has never been an issue for Idan Raichel. For the past decade, the Israeli musician has blended Ethiopian, Latin, Middle Eastern and Caribbean beats, with his group, The Idan Raichel Project. Raichel, who is credited with redefining Israeli popular music, continues to tour and collaborate with diverse artists, including India Arie.

To see the full list click here

Behind The Scenes - The Toure Raichel Collective

IMN

May 25th, 2012

from Pop Matters

The Toure-Raichel Collective – ‘The Tel Aviv Session’ EPK

PopMatters’ David Maine recently raved about the collaboration between Afrobeat’s Vieux Farka Toure and Israeli singer-songwriter Idan Raichel, saying “it would be an understatement to say that The Tel Aviv Session is a good record, or even a great one. This is, simply put, one of the best Afro-pop collaborations you are likely to hear, rivaling the elder Toure’s 1994 effort with Ry Cooder, Talking Tuimbuktu.” The album is one of those genre-mashing blends that we at PopMatters can never resist. If our praise hasn’t been enough, then check out the mini documentary on the project below, featuring interviews with the musicians and just see if you can resist the power of this music. Admit it, you can’t.

Watch the video here