Customer Reviews

Diaspora

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

One Saturday night, my friends and I were witnesses to a beautiful belly dancer in full swing at a local Middle Eastern place. I always had an idea of what it was like - but the reality was amazing. It took me away to another time and place (the hookah I was smoking helped a little.) The music seemed to sweep her around the room in a seductive sheet of smoke and bells. She told me she usually works with tracks off DIASPORA in addition to other more traditional music. Diaspora is a word that refers to Jews living outside the promised land - the dispersed, essentially.

I've heard most of Natacha Atlas' music - and will state flat out this is her best, most hypnotic solo album. Halim is my second favorite - and the rest kind of fade out from there. An artist does what an artist does: she seems to be moving towards the R&B and hip-hop mix genres that are popular in the United States and Europe. Not sure why? She may be trying to cut her teeth in these styles and try to make a bigger break? How unfortunate. If you listen to samples of her later albums, you will know what I'm describing. Sounds like the junk I hear on European variety shows and MTV. Wherever her career has been moving toward: DIASPORA is still simply magic - very refreshing, full of a sensual and erotic life all its own. I wish that Natacha would return to this more traditional style, but alas she has seen the future and it will be...

Get DIASPORA and be whisked away. If you have a work out schedule, enjoy cheesy house music or third-rate hip-hop, then by all means explore her other solo efforts. I will stop here, thank you very much. I had to purchase a USED COPY of this album, as it is now unfortunately OUT OF PRINT.

I am writing this partly because I gave only two stars for Mishmaoul. I am a big fan of Arabic pop & folk music and Diaspora was my first introduction to Natacha. I fell in love with her voice then, the first time and forever but I have little patience for too much western pop hybrids that do no justice to her beautiful Arabic singing (the cheezy 'I put a spell on you' from Ayeshteni, or the attempt at hip-hop 'Feen' from Mishmaoul). DIaspora definitely stays more to her roots than her later works. I am also writing this review in the hope that someday Natacha will return to her roots and do some Arabic folk songs or more original pieces like these. Also to the producers/engineers: too much verb, she doesnt need it!

This is a stunning CD. I've never heard something like this. Atlas' music is a fine blend of western dance music and arab music (whatever that maybe). She's got a warm voice and in some songs she sounds like a siren in danger. She sings and wails about the middle east, the desert, love and old prophesies. Although you can hear that she made this album with band members from Transglobal Underground, she has managed to create a sound of her own. This is definitely not an easy listening album. It is so rare that you are very likely to make enemies with it. Sofar, I haven't been able to convince friends or family of the beauty of this album. Play it loud and alone. This is a sound investment.

I first heard Natacha on Jah Wobble's Album "Heaven and Earth" in a song simply entitled "Love Song" and was wowed! from the start. All songs on Diaspora are listenable but my 2 favorites are number 6 "Duden" and number 9 "Dub Yalil." In the first song her sweet, haunting voice is underpinned by the stark open chords of a mandolin and driving bass line to form a sound uniquely her own. In the second song I like the souped-up/ dirge-like bass line and percussion counterpointing her wailing voice like she's a muezzin in a minaret summoning the faithful to worship...and now me. Be sure to check out her CD "Halim" if you like this one.

Intense, provocative, sultry, mystical, mmmh... It's so nice to hear "cross-cultural" music that is, plain-and-simple, GREAT music. This isn't "pop music meets the sitar," or "the culturally-deprived hippie meets the tabla," or any other dumb "project" undertaken by some bored western artist. This is fantastic, real music, free of gimmicks or cliches. Trans-Mediterranean, trans-Atlantic, and of course Transglobal, Ms. Atlas has it going on! Fans should also check out Fairuz, Natacha's fabulous predecessor.

This is a stunning CD. I've never heard something like this. Atlas' music is a fine blend of western dance music and arab music (whatever that maybe). She's got a warm voice and in some songs she sounds like a siren in danger. She sings and wails about the middle east, the desert, love and old prophesies. Although you can hear that she made this album with band members from Transglobal Underground, she has managed to create a sound of her own. This is definitely not an easy listening album. It is so rare that you are very likely to make enemies with it. Sofar, I haven't been able to convince friends or family of the beauty of this album. Play it loud and alone. This is a sound investment.

This is one of my all time favorite albums. I have never met anyone that heard it and did not love it. You will not be disappointed if you get it.

This CD will get you out of your chair and dancing. My favorite track on it is the original edit of "Fun Does Not Exist". The whole album is good, tribal and exotic, perfect for working on my bellydance moves, but the other tracks I love too are "Iskanderia", "Leysh Nat'Arak", and "Yalla Chant".

This music is a perfect marriage of Arab and electronic music. I listened to it yesterday evening and I can tell you that it made me fall in trance. I especially like the harmony between traditional and modern elements, the instruments and the sound effects are in a perfect balance. It is hard to find something comparable to this. Therefore 5 stars.

I have been listening to this CD for over 10 years, and I never tire of its beauty and sensuality. It is an album to be intimate with and let myself go to.

Caution: this CD may take you on a journey that causes you to wail and thrash and dance and make serious love if you let yourself give in to its power.

Natacha Atlas has never sounded better, and this music is beyond any rating system.