Upstairs in the cca's temporary home, tucked away in a far corner, one of the gems of Billy Kelly's Big Big World festival lurked modestly.
A small assortment of instruments - one oud, the lute's Arabian cousin; a pair of bendirs, near kin to the Irish bodhran - but a vast array of sounds, moods, and influences were on show, including the roots, or at least some of them, of Flamenco and what sounded distinctly like a Middle Ages draft of a certain surf guitar hit of recent memory.
Palestinian Adel Salameh is the oud player, nominal leader, and musical conduit in the trio, a musician of remarkable flexibility, subtlety, and energy, moving between the instrument's deep, dug-out bass notes and taut, ringing upper-register runs with ease and expressivity.
He could, doubtless, carry the gig all by himself. But it is his music triumphing over politics rapport with an Israeli, Asaf Sinkis, an unassuming master percussionist, that quickens the pulse. With his tapping fingers, gently stroking palms, and rapping knuckles, Sinkis's sound sculpting on what looks like a velumed garden riddle makes a mockery of those rock drummers with their estates of hittable hardware. Time and again he and Salameh conspired in concentrated, prolonged synchronicity that beggared rational explanation.
Yet, no grandstanders, they can also selflessly accompany a song and although, without the benefit of knowing her language, Zaziha Azzouri's singing could become a bit samey, she too conveyed admirable poise, musicality and heart, particularly on a four-part song detailing various stages of love where hope, joy, and maddening frustration appeared to queue up for a share of the searching, edgy melodic limelight.
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