Oud-led albums can go one away or the other. Either they can bore you within an inch of your life or they can magically transport you to another world - a better place. Happily Nizar Rohana's first solo album - "Sard" ("Narration" in Arabic) - falls into the latter category, with Palestinian born Rohana's masterful oud playing dominating proceedings and complemented by three other able musicians sharing duties on percussion, double bass and qanoun. The majority of the tracks are medium-paced - just the right tempo, I would say. For me the standout tracks are "Iraq", "Emm el Zeinat" and the title track solo piece "Sard". Five out of the seven pieces are original compositions and are a great introduction to a player that I suspect we will be hearing a lot more from in the future.
The video is a clip of Nizar performing a track from the album entitled "HiJaz".
I haven't heard of this artist before so thanks for the heads up.
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