Natacha Atlas has a voice that is rare, especially to us in Northern Europe. This isn’t because she has been silent. There’s a wealth of music from this singular artist. Strange Days, her hypnotic, and musically blow your socks off, experiment in Arabic Jazz with Samy Bishai was peerless.
In 2021, I had the great privilege of speaking with Natacha and Samy on my podcast about Strange Days, about making music, the life of an artist between worlds, and of holding on to syncretic and unifying ideas in the increasingly polarising world.
That was then. Today, demonstrating the vitality and resilience of this incredible artist, comes Parallel Universe, Vol 1.
As a concept, it’s an album which speaks to the malaise we are all probably afflicted with in the face of events driven by leaders across the globe, and powered up by divisive social media algorithms. It’s a panacea. It’s also a call to action. But most of all, it’s a resounding sonic adventure.
Zar 12 starts proceedings with a melodic rhythm driving a spiralling sense of unease. Are we rising or are we sinking? Unchanging Game leads you further along the path with its poetic chant … a swimming pool glittering on a hot day. Wana Leih layers voices with vocoders and nursery rhyme to a skipping beat.
The musical artistry of Samy Bishai reintroduces metronomy to relaxed, freeform Arabic Jazz. There is exquisite vocal layering; twining and climbing, Atlas’s golden voice spirals amid spoken interludes, stoked by keys and violin. Rising beautifully above bedlam, Atlas also has the freedom to lean into resonant and deep chest notes and a declamatory style, on Somoud especially. In Bahlam Biyoum (Dream of a Day) her clear, bell-like head voice and melismatic quarter tones are richer and more gilded than ever for being offset like this.
The more you listen to this album, the more you discover that what you took for melodic instrumentation is voice, that guitars are distorted violins, and call, response, and chant create a meditative state which is far from passive. There’s a laser focus to this work.
Parallel Universe, Vol 1 is the kind of album Massive Attack might have wished to make with Atlas and Bishai, except that Atlas and Bishai got there first. I’ve got this on repeat. There are layers and depths to dive into here.
Sanjit Chudha 