Audiogrammes

In Lebanon, a lot of Arabic names get shortened to an American nickname:
Most commonly Mohamad becomes Moe. Sometimes you get Jeff for Chafic or Billy/Willy for Walid. Another one you get used to is Bob for Ibrahim.
Which takes us straight to the chase: I have a slightly thematic post one week after Eid el Adha, the second of two religious holidays celebrated by Muslims worldwide each year.

The “Festival of the sacrifice” (As Wikipedia explains so candidly) honors the willingness of Abraham (Ibrahim) to sacrifice his promised son, Ishmael (Ismail), as an act of submission to God’s command, before God then intervened to provide Abraham with a lamb to sacrifice instead.

In the other two monotheist religions it’s the “Story of Isaac” as sung by Leonard Cohen on his 1969 masterpiece Songs From A Room

Anyway, so let’s start with a disclaimer: I mean no disrespect etc etc…
Here’s a track that was really hard to find here before Youtube: it was banned and I had only got the chance to hear it once at an “écoute musicale”.

Yes, on Ishmael South African pianist Abdullah Ibrahim (formerly known as Dollar Brand) sings the Fatiha.

For completists there’s also an instrumental cover by the ubiquitous Nicolas Jaar.

But let’s stay in the Ibrahim family, Ali from the Ivory Coast also sings Allah’s praises on this funky track

Shoulda posted this a week ago but all this came together tonight.
Plus it allowed to squeeze in the perfect outro: Yes, the picture illustrating this post is Killer Bob from David Lynch‘s Twin Peaks and in case you haven’t been online lately, here’s an important announcement:

#damngoodcoffee