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Tom Schnabel, music critic for KCRW makes his pick for today’s Global Hit. It’s singer Natacha Atlas and her new album, “Mounqaliba”. Download MP3
Natacha Atlas – What Ever Lola Wants
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LISA MULLINS: Now, from southern Spain to northern Africa, by way of today’s Global Hit. Here’s station KCRW’s music programmer Tom Schnabel.
TOM SCHNABEL: I was very happy to see this new album by Natacha Atlas. She’s London based, was brought up in the Moroccan quarter of Belgium. She is a Sephardic Jew. The new album is called Mounqaliba, In a State of Reversal. It’s very different than her other albums. She was part of trendsetting bands like Transglobal Underground, very much an underground band in London. This is much more of a classic album. She recorded it with a 20-piece Turkish orchestra. There are qanoons and ouds and strings and a piano and instruments that don’t normally figure always in a large Arabic band. The first song that I want to play from Natacha’s new album is called “Muwashah Ozkourini.” This song tells the story of love and has a detail of life in twelfth century Arabia. So we’re going way back in this album. That’s hardly the stuff of clubs, it’s a very new direction for her and I think that she really pulls it off beautifully. That was “Muwashah Ozkourini.” The next song from Natacha Atlas’ new album Mounqaliba, in a state of reversal, is a very beautiful song. It ends the album. It’s called “Nafourat El Anwar.” The English translation would be “The Fountain Cascades, the miracle of light upon waters, the color of turquoise. In my minds eye, the vision is thee, you are my secret garden, my fountain in light.” So it is a love song. The third and final song that I’d like to share with you from Natacha Atlas’ new record, Mounqaliba, is Nick Drake’s “River Man.” Natacha has a very special spin when she does a cover version. She did James Brown’s “It’s a Man’s World” a few years ago and I thought it was just stunning. And she does the same thing for “River Man,” the Nick Drake classic. We’ll close with that. Natacha Atlas.
MULLINS: That’s singer Natacha Atlas and her version of “River Man.” It’s off her new album that’s called Mounqaliba. And it’s music critic Tom Schnabel’s pick for us today. From the Nan and Bill Harris studios at WGBH in Boston, I’m Lisa Mullins. Join us again tomorrow.
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