RAHMANN

RAHMANN is the project of Mahamad Hadi who's parents (African / Asian) moved from Algeria when Mahamad was a baby. Some cool stories in the liner notes about him getting into music and the bands he was involved with early on. One of his band members at the time, bassist Jean-Pierre was exposed to a lot of music along with Mahamad because Jean-Pierre's parents lent out their basement to local bands to practice quite often, so the two young men sat in on many rehearsals. What's surreal is that while Mahamad was helping out at a MAGMA concert in 1972, he met Vander and the band and convinced them to come over and practice in his friends basement. Blasquiz and Vander checked it out and agreed to bring the band over ! Another time Francis and Didier Lockwood who were between bands at the time stayed with Mahamad for a while and even played a gig with them and their band ! By the way Didier guests on this album. Another story in here I hadn't heard before was about MAGMA touring the UK in 1974 and hiring a young American female singer to sing backup on their tour. Her name was Chrissie Hynde (then unknown of course). She only stayed a short time then quit (haha). After RAHMANN broke up Mahamad started a new one with Benoit Wideman on keyboards but the tour they were practicing for was cancelled so the band broke up.

RAHMANN play a Jazz / Zeuhl brand of music with a strong ethnic flavour. Mahamad plays Bouzouki, Oud and Snitra, while a guest plays tablas bringing that ethnic flavour out. I should mention too that Gerard Prevost (ZAO) plays bass here. Nice. The music here is absolutely fantastic ! It's exotic and dark at times with lots of keyboards and percussion. Prevost is prominant on bass and the drummer is incredible. My favourite track is "Leila". The way it turns dark and experimental before a minute is killer. It kicks back in after 2 1/2 minutes. Love the drumming after 4 1/2 minutes and the guitar that follows. A very Zeuhlish track. The piano is great too. Intense stuff.

The whole recording is amazing though. This was a huge discovery for me.