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WORLD TOUR #18 PALESTINE & ISRAEL UPDATE
ALBUMS
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In the name of the father, the Imam & John Lennon
TAMER NAFAR
Released 20 January 2026
Levantine Music / Tamer Nafar
****-
The Palestinian artist's first English-language album, released at a pivotal moment - raw, reflective, historically rooted and defiantly human in its reach.
Tamer Nafar is one of hip-hop’s most recognised voices from the Middle East, a founding member of DAM - widely considered the first Palestinian hip-hop group - and a long-standing figure in political rap and cultural storytelling. Born and raised in Lyd, (the Arabic name of Lod, a bustling 5,000-year-old Palestinian town that was taken over when Israel was established in 1948), Nafar helped shape a generation of Palestinian artists and activists by blending hip-hop with social critique and lived experience in Arabic, Hebrew and English across a career now approaching three decades.
With his new album, "In the Name of the Father, the Imam & John Lennon", Nafar issues his first full English-language album, a milestone situated at a significant moment in the history of the region where politics, identity and narrative urgency collide. According to HyphenOnline, the record was largely written and recorded before the pandemic and saw Nafar revisit his early connection to English hip-hop, a language he first learned by listening to Tupac and working through an English–Arabic dictionary, as a way to foreground nuance, metaphor and historical depth in every verse.
The album represents both a culmination and a new beginning. HyphenOnline adds that this is a record that Nafar “didn’t release for nostalgia” but because the time felt right “for politics, generational trauma, all of it, to come together in one album.” That impulse animates every track, a mixture of reflection, critique and personal reckoning that doesn’t shy away from complexity.
The album opens with “The Beat Never Goes Off”, a collaborative statement that places Nafar alongside younger voices such as Gazan rapper MC Abdul and vocalist Noel Kharman, demonstrating a through-line between experience and emerging perspectives. “Go There” draws on UK drill's heavy bass line techniques as it confronts structural neglect and rising community pressures, grounding the political urgency in contemporary expression.
Importantly, the English language isn’t used cosmetically, but as a tool. Nafar tells Hyphen that English allows him to shape “punchlines, wordplay, metaphors, allegories” in ways that push emotional and intellectual nuance forward, rather than diluting his message. "Change the world for me", Nafar's duet with DAS bandmate Maysa Daw, the penultimate track, is a late-album pearl. The title track itself, a meditation on memory, absence and inherited belief, underscores that blend: remembering a father who played both Qur’an recitations and Beatles records, Nafar locates his own story between conviction and curiosity, reverence and critique.
The result is an album that doesn’t settle for slogans or simplifications. It’s introspective and combative, personal yet resonant, at once a continuation of the political art Nafar has long practised and a distinct new chapter in his voice’s evolution.
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Lullaby
TOGETHER FOR PALESTINE
CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS: AMENA EL ABD (AMENA), BRIAN ENO, CELESTE, DAN SMITH (BASTILLE), KIERAN BRUNT, LANA LUBANY, LEIGH-ANNE PINNOCK, LONDON COMMUNITY GOSPEL CHOIR, MABEL, MAHMOUL DARWISH, NADINE SHAH, NAI BARGHOUTI, NENEH CHERRY, PETER GABRIEL, SURA ABDO, TYSON, YASMEEN AYYASHI, YSEE
Released 12 December 2025
T4P
*****
A heartfelt reimagining of a Palestinian folk lullaby, that brings together a diverse ensemble of artists in a charity single.
Lullaby is a charity single released under the collective name Together for Palestine, born out of a major benefit concert held in September 2025 at London’s Wembley Arena that raised millions for Palestinian-led relief organisations.The song is a modern reworking of the traditional Palestinian lullaby Yamma Mweel El Hawa, arranged by Kieran Brunt and Palestinian musician Nai Barghouti, with English lyrics inspired by the original penned by Peter Gabriel and additional verses drawn from the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish.
Palestinian lead vocals from Nai Barghouti and Lana Lubany is supported by contributions from British and international artists, whose voices thread through the arrangement with a measured emotionality rather than overt pop bombast. The production, (by Kieran Brunt, Benji B and Henri Davies) allows space for choral resonance via the London Community Gospel Choir and a sense of reflective spaciousness.
Although the production stops short of typical mainstream fare, it achieved notable chart traction, peaking within the UK Top 5 and raised significant funds for humanitarian relief.
Critical response has ranged from praise for its sincerity and cross-cultural collaboration to cautious appraisal of its effectiveness as a pop statement. Commentators also highlighted how the track foregrounds Palestinian musical heritage and contemporary voices without subsuming them to a purely Western pop framework, creating an emotional balance that reflects hope, grief and shared humanity.
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Forever (Vol. 1-3)
ITZIK DADYA
Released 111 December 2025
ID Music / YUKS
****-
Bringing a warm vocal presence and devotional lyricism to a portfolio of songs of celebration and devotion.
Israeli singer-songwriter Itzik Dadya has built a devoted following in the Jewish music world as a versatile vocalist steeped in religious themes and co munal songs. Born in Netivot in 1993 and active internationally from synagogue choirs to global wedding stages, Dadya blends a folk-pop sensibility with traditional motifs, supported by modern production.
Over the past decade he has balanced concert work with studio releases that span devotional, celebratory and narrative terrain. With the Forever project, released in three instalments across 2025, Dadya applies his distinctive lyrical voice to the rhythms and rituals of weddings and life-cycle rites, forging musical expressions of blessing, love and continuity in communities from Israel to the United States.
The inclusion of both Hebrew and occasional English elements, as on the title song, broadens the project’s reach. Listeners drawn to Dadya’s expressive vocals and community-oriented songwriting no doubt find much to enjoy, though those seeking more overtly provocative or experimental material may find the project’s focus narrow:
Forever stays squarely within the festive and devotional realm, a musical backdrop for life’s joyful milestones rather than broader social commentary.
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Ad Sheyavo Mashiach
NAFTALI KEMPEH
Released 9 November 2025
Naftali Kempeh
****-
A devotional collection that brings a heartfelt, modern voice to songs of ancient resilience, longing and hope.
Naftali Kempeh occupies a unique space in contemporary Israeli music: a singer-songwriter whose work is rooted in Jewish spiritual tradition yet shaped by lived emotion and communal experience. Raised within the yeshiva world (traditional Jewish religious study), his early years were shaped by kumzitz gatherings (communal sing-alongs) and heartfelt niggunim (wordless devotional melodies). Over time, Kempeh has expanded this base, crafting original compositions that draw on traditional texts, prayer, and lived longing for renewal, all delivered with a warm voice and accessible musicality. Ad Sheyavo Mashiach, extends this lineage, grounding biblical imagery and heartfelt hope in arrangements that bridge sacred sensibilities with contemporary pop-rock expression.
The album's title translates literally as “Until the Messiah Comes,” a phrase that threads the album’s emotional core: the oscillation between present struggle and hopeful anticipation. Over 11 tracks and roughly 43 minutes, Kempeh unfolds a blend of melodic pop-rock, contemplative balladry and spiritually tinged songwriting that feels both intimate and communal. The opening songs establish this tone, weaving acoustic warmth with reflective narrative, while cuts like “Melech Rachaman” and the title track deploy heavier rhythmic drive, inviting both contemplation and uplift.
Lyrically, the record draws deeply from Jewish textual tradition, phrasing longing and joy in passages that feel timeless yet urgent.
According to interviews and commentary accompanying the release, Kempeh wrote much of this material amid periods of collective anxiety and faith, shaping music that aims to console and inspire in equal measure.
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River of Eden
YOSEF GUTMAN & PETER BRODERICK
Released 8 November 2025
Soul Song Records
*****
A prayer-like dialogue between double bass and violin that achieves true excellence through its spiritual depth and minimalist precision.
Yosef Gutman is an Israeli-born bassist and composer whose work often explores the intersection of Jewish mysticism and contemporary classical music.
Peter Broderick is a polymathic American musician known for his mastery of the violin, piano paired with intimate vocal delivery.
River of Eden is the result of a deep, long-distance creative communion between these two artists, and a project that strips away the clutter of modern production, focusing instead on the raw, resonant dialogue between Gutman’s grounding double bass and Broderick’s ethereal violin. Together, they create a sound that is simultaneously ancient and contemporary: that prioritizes space and "sincere insight" over technical bravado.
River of Eden is a masterclass in originality and restraint, a fully realized sonic ecosystem, the genius of which lies in the duo's ability to each make their instruments feel like half of a full orchestra, through the sheer quality of their musicianship.
Gutman’s bass provides a woody, heartbeat-like foundation, while Broderick’s violin weaves around it with an economy of notes, such that every phrase is essential, every silence is earned.
The compositional excellence is evident in the album’s narrative flow; it feels like a spiritual pilgrimage. The production is transparent and hushed, allowing the listener to hear the grain of the wood and the breath of the performers.
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AWDA
ZEYNE
Released 16 October 2025
MDLBEAST / Scarab Records
****-
A luminous, genre-defying blend of sleek R&B and Arabic textures, defining a new era of diaspora pop
In contrast to the visceral, heavy-hearted reflections often found in contemporary Palestinian art, zeyne offers a refreshing, sophisticated alternative. Her latest work, AWDA, demonstrates the incredible breadth of the Palestinian diaspora, focusing on themes of return and identity through a polished, contemporary lens.
Zeyne is a Jordanian-Palestinian singer and songwriter who has rapidly become a leading voice in the "New Arab" music movement. Based in Amman, she effortlessly bridges the gap between traditional Middle Eastern melodies and modern global sounds like soul, R&B, and electronic pop. Her artistic persona is characterized by its grace and clarity, often exploring themes of heritage, belonging, and feminine strength. As comfortable in the world of high fashion as pop, and unlike some of her peers who utilize abrasive textures to mirror regional turmoil, zeyne favors a sophisticated, high-sheen production style that emphasizes resilience through beauty, making her a vital representative of the creative range within the Palestinian diaspora.
AWDA (meaning "Return") is an album of remarkable originality and true excellence in its vocal and compositional execution. While many diaspora artists grapple with the horrors of conflict through direct protest music, zeyne chooses a different path (arguably, as either more subversive or naive): the celebration of cultural continuity and the "dream of return" through a lens of modern luxury and sleek R&B.
The musicianship is top-tier, featuring lush, synthesized soundscapes that are grounded by traditional percussion and subtle oud flourishes. Zeyne’s vocals are the album’s centerpiece: silky, controlled and possessing a deceptive ease that masks the technical difficulty of her modal runs.
The innovation here lies in the arrangement; tracks like "Bala" and the soaring title track move seamlessly from club-ready grooves to intimate, folk-inspired ballads. This is not merely a pop album; it is a meticulously produced statement of identity that refuses to be defined solely by trauma, instead offering a vision of Palestinian identity that is vibrant, modern, and undeniably global.
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Rap Sharq El Nahir
EL FAR3i
Released 10 October 2025
Arab Drumz
****-
A hip-hop manifesto from one of the scene’s most lucid voices in the Arabic rap world.
Jordanian-Palestinian artist El Far3i (الفرعى) has spent more than a decade forging a distinctive path at the crossroads of Arabic folk, poetic rap and regional identity politics. Based in Amman but rooted in the larger Levantine cultural sphere, El Far3i’s work adeptly straddles acoustic sensibilities and street-level hip-hop, building on early releases from Far3 El Madakhil (2012) and Kaman Dafsheh (2014) to Nas Min Khashab (2022).
With a career that threads back to the rise of Amman’s rap scene, his lyrical voice marries local dialect, socio-political observation and personal chronicle, all carried by beats that lean into the groove without ever obscuring the intent.
Rap Sharq El Nahir amplifies this dual lineage: conscious, grounded and collectively energized, the album trades the folk-rap fusion of much of El Far3i’s earlier catalogue for a more direct hip-hop focus, channeling the heritage of Amman’s rap community into a tight 32-minute set that remains varied and impactful.
The project’s title(literally “Rap East of the River”) functions as both geographical marker and philosophical compass, anchoring the work in layered regional identity while suggesting a flow of influence and dialogue rather than isolation. The album relies on crisp, grounded beats and verses that pivot between confrontation, narrative introspection and communal solidarity. Standouts such as “Haki” and “Rayga Rayga” mix sharp social commentary with rhythmic swagger, while tracks like “Dnm Dnm” and “Kalimatu Haqqin” foreground storytelling that feels both personal and collective. Guest features from The Synaptik, Emsallam, Satti and ElSheefra extend the record’s reach into Amman’s broader hip-hop ecosystem.
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Life Is Hard As Mud
AHMED MUIN AND FRIENDS
Released 6 August 2025
Ergo Phizmiz / Songs From the Rubble
*****
A heart-opening compendium of musical expression forged amid displacement, resilience and everyday life in Gaza - field-recorded voices, improvised singing and collective testimony.
Ahmed Muin Abu Amsha is a Palestinian musician, composer, educator and music teacher from the Gaza Strip whose work over the past decade has blended performance, teaching and community engagement. Since 2023 he has documented and shaped musical life amid ongoing conflict, founding the collective Gaza Birds Singing (GBS), a group of displaced children and young adults who learn, perform and share songs as acts of emotional expression and communal solidarity.
Muin also runs the ongoing project Songs From the Rubble, a platform that compiles his compositions and recordings from Gaza as free or donation-based releases, asserting music as a universal language of resistance, life and joy.
Life is Hard as Mud is one of the most comprehensive documents of this work: intimate, direct and deeply human, less an album in the conventional sense than a compilation archive of musical fragments, field moments and emergent voices from Gaza during 2024-25.
Clocking in with nearly thirty tracks that range from concise improvised utterances (“Anne Sophie Malmberg sings with the drones”) to community choirs (“Amoaj Choir sing Free Palestine”) and children’s renditions of the iconic Nassam Alayna Al Hawa, the project resists polished production in favour of raw presence and immediacy.
Muin’s own performances of Yamma Mayel el Hawa and observational interludes such as Looks Like the Drones Missed Singing With Me or I’m Fed Up capture the dualities of life persisting amid danger: of art functioning as both testimony and relief; of creativity over destruction; of hop over despair; of humor over dread; of freedom over tyranny.
Ahmed Muin’s work, particularly through Gaza Birds Singing, is emblematic of cultural resilience during sustained conflict.
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Lider Mit Palestin:
New Yiddish Songs of Grief, Fury, and Love
VARIOUS ARTISTS
Released 22 July 2025
Lider Mit Palestine
****-
Songs that tremble with heartache and shake with anger, songs that overflow with life, from a group of artists who refuse to accept a status quo of oppression and erasure, and who refuse silence.
In the face of the ongoing genocidal assault on the Palestinian people, “LIDER MIT PALESTINE: New Yiddish Songs of Grief, Fury, and Love” is a rare collection of 17 original songs steeped in history and heritage and committed to a liberatory future.
All proceeds (excluding shipping costs and Bandcamp's and Paypal's processing fees), go to Gaza Birds Singing — a musical, educational, and therapeutic project in Gaza.
(Funds are received and disbursed by Kulturverein Friling, a Yiddish cultural association based in Vienna.)
Featuring the work of: Adah Hetko, Ariel Shapiro, Benjy Fox-Rosen, Chris Stromquist, Christian Dawid, Dan Cantrell, Daniel Kahn, Éléonore Weill, Esther Gottesman, Esther Wratschko, Isabel Frey, Jake Shulman-Ment, Joe Dobkin, Jordan Wax, Josh Waletzky, Lenny Melekh, Levoneh, Linda Gritz, Lysander Jaffe, Maia Brown, Mary Feaster, Michael Alpert, Michael Winograd, Noam Lerman, Rachel Leader, Raffi Boden, rosza daniel lang/levitsky, Ruby Poltorak, Sam Basch, Sam Day Harmet, Weaver, Zackary Sholem Berger, and more
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Amplify Palestine
UNBOUNDABLE:
BDS Mixtape Vol. 3
VARIOUS ARTISTS
Released 9 July 2025
Amplify Palestine
****-
A defiant, world-class assembly of global resistance music that transforms the boycott movement into a vibrant, unstoppable sonic celebration.
Amplify Palestine is a global creative platform and collective dedicated to centering Palestinian voices and mobilizing the international arts community in support of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
The BDS Mixtape series, now in its third volume with UNBOUNDABLE, serves as a curated cultural intervention, inviting artists from the Palestinian diaspora and their international allies to contribute exclusive tracks. By blending music with grassroots activism, Amplify Palestine demonstrates that cultural production is a vital site of resistance, using the "mixtape" format to foster a borderless community of creators committed to justice, liberation, and the right to return.
Unboundable: BDS Mixtape Vol. 3 is a work of true excellence, proving that political music can be as aesthetically innovative as it is socially urgent. Unlike the polished "diaspora pop" of artists like zeyne, this compilation embraces a grittier, more experimental originality, spanning traditional Palestinian folk, high-octane hip-hop, and avant-garde electronic textures.
The musicianship across the 18 tracks is breathtakingly diverse, yet the arrangement feels remarkably cohesive. The innovation lies in the juxtaposition: a haunting oud improvisation might be followed by a heavy industrial beat, mirroring the fragmented yet resilient reality of the Palestinian experience. The vocal performances range from whispered poetry to defiant anthems, each track serving as a unique pillar of the broader narrative. By refusing to settle into a single genre, Unboundable succeeds in its mission to be "unboundable" by borders or expectations. It is a masterful, essential document of modern resistance music that demands to be heard—and acted upon.
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Only Sounds That Tremble Through Us
فقط أصوات ترتعش في أجسادنا
BASEL ABBAS & RUANNE ABOU-RAHME / VARIOUS ARTISTS
Released 30 May 2025
Bilna’es بالناقص
****-
A haunting, if challenging, two-part sonic archive that transforms fragments of communal song and dance into a powerful electronic ritual of resistance.
Only Sounds That Tremble Through Us is the latest evolution of the long-running project May amnesia never kiss us on the mouth by the Ramallah/New York-based collective Bilna’es. Spanning over fifteen years of research, the project began with Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme collecting online recordings of everyday people singing and dancing in public spaces across Iraq, Palestine, Syria, and Yemen.
Working across film, sound, and installation, Abbas and Abou-Rahme are multidisciplinary artists and researchers renowned for their exploration of contemporary landscape and the politics of visibility. This double LP serves as a bridge between their archival research into communal memory and the present: the first disc features original compositions by the duo, while the second disc hosts commissioned works by a stellar cast of experimentalists, including Muqata'a, DJ Haram, Julmud, Hiro Kone, and Drew McDowall.
This compilation is a landmark in compositional excellence, functioning as both a "material witness" to cultural survival and a forward-thinking experimental document. The first disc is a cohesive suite where Abbas and Abou-Rahme place fragile, often low-fidelity recordings of communal rituals into "holy drones" and modern electronic frameworks. The transition from individual voice to communal rhythm on tracks like "After everything is extracted" is visceral and deeply moving.
The second disc shifts the focus toward a global dialogue. Highlights include Muqata'a’s "Tashaquqat," which uses industrial textures to evoke a sense of physical and structural resilience, and DJ Haram’s percussive, Middle Eastern-inflected club track. The innovation here lies in how these artists treat the archive—not as a relic, but as a living "power object" that demands a response. It is a "sincere and insightful" collection that frames the act of making sound as a refusal of erasure, capturing moments of "immeasurable value" that tremble with the weight of history and the hope of return.
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Feature Article (A Closer Listen)
Dual Reality (Deluxe)
LLUNR
Released 23 May 2025
Levantine Music / EMPIRE
****-
A thoughtfully split exploration of love, identity and responsibility set against modern reality and heritage.
Palestinian-Jordanian singer-songwriter Llunr, born Bader Khatib, has emerged as one of the most intriguing young voices to bridge global pop and Levantine cultural textures. Built on viral traction, via social platforms and breakout singles like opening track Rocketship blends, Llunr matches accessible melodies with lyrical clarity and a growing commitment to personal and communal narratives.
Operating within the broader pop arena while retaining nods to Arabic inflection and cross-cultural sentiment, Llunr’s sound feels welcoming yet nuanced. With Dual Reality, he steps beyond a six-years-long cycle of single releases, into full album territory, weaving emotional introspection and outward-looking themes that reflect both his internal world and his rootedness in contemporary Palestinian identity.
Dual Reality divides itself conceptually and sonically, almost in two distinct halves. The first leans into accessible, anthem-ready pop overflowing with buoyant rhythms, shimmering guitar lines and melodic hooks that keep the listener engaged. These tracks are catchy, effusive, projecting warmth and optimism. In the second half, the album shifts tone, containing sparser arrangements and more introspective sentiment, as Llunr’s lyricism turns toward the expression of resilience, collective memory and the realities of his Palestinian heritage.
The interplay between bright pop craft and reflective storytelling gives Dual Reality its core tension and speaks to both universal feelings of love and heartbreak and more particular questions of identity and obligation. While it leans toward the safe side of pop, the record’s thematic scope and Llunr’s clear voice make it a surprisingly effective communique.
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After The Last Sky
ANOUAR BRAHEM
Released 28 March 2025
*****
Not just music to admire - this is music to keep close at hand, to play repeatedly and to live with.
Across three decades of transcendent recordings, Tunisian oud virtuoso Anouar Brahem has sculpted one of the most distinctive voices in global music. Seamlessly blending Arab classical tradition with jazz, chamber music, and folk motifs, Brahem's work resists categorization while honoring the spirit of each influence.
Like Rabih Abou-Khalil, Jan Garbarek, or Shakti, he has forged a luminous musical language that speaks across borders - not through bombast, but with quiet intensity and lyrical precision. His contributions to ECM’s catalog are among its most meditative and enduring, each album a self-contained world of restrained beauty.
After the Last Sky extends this legacy with grace and subtle innovation. Reuniting with cellist Anja Lechner and bassist Dave Holland - two of his most attuned collaborators - and joined by the elusive Django Bates on piano, Brahem crafts a sequence of ruminative, spacious compositions that shimmer with emotional depth.
The album's title suggests loss, aftermath, and imagination beyond boundaries; the music answers with reflection, melancholy, and moments of crystalline hope. Lechner’s cello entwines with the oud like vines on a wind-carved ruin, while Holland and Bates provide rhythmic architecture that never constrains, only uplifts.
What makes After the Last Sky special, even within Brahem’s consistently excellent body of work, is its balance of familiarity and risk. The interplay feels lived-in yet unafraid to explore. Each note is deliberate, unhurried, and emotionally charged. As always, silence is his greatest ally.
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Cinema Royal
CINEMA ROYAL
NITAI HERSHKOVITS, REJOICER
Released 7 March 2025
Rhythm Section International
****-
A cinematic confection in which Afrobeat, jazz and modern classical are mixed in dreamlike accord.
Israeli pianist and composer Nitai Hershkovits joins forces with Rejoicer (fellow member of Apifera, the psych-jazz-electronica quartet known for blending improvisation with analog synths, for their first release under the evocative "Cinema Royale" moniker. This new alignment sees their long-running collaboration now pivot toward cinematic chamber-jazz mixing global acoustic textures with playful synths and Afrobeat-tinged percussion.
Cinema Royal is an understated marvel: an intricate collection that smuggles silky sophistication beneath a seemingly effortless veneer of airy charm.
Hershkovits’ piano leads with elegance and intuition, frequently delivered in single takes, while Rejoicer’s subtle programming and harmonic layering creates a frame that’s loose yet cohesive. It’s an album that delights in mood-building: opening track “The True North” sets a hushed, nocturnal tone, followed by “Food Bowl,” which unfolds like a second-line procession viewed through a cinematic lens, complete with horns and a sly rhythmic swing.
Global sonics are folded in with remarkable finesse. Zithers, mandolin, accordion, and Afrobeat percussion don’t demand attention but feel perfectly at home in the dreamy mise-en-scène. “Affair in Redondo” and “Apryl’s Velvet Dress” evoke 1960s European film soundtracks reimagined in a Tel Aviv jazz loft. There’s a whispered admiration for composers like Rota and Morricone, but also for Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou and the understated elan of ECM.
Rather than explode with innovation, Cinema Royal invites the listener into a world of quiet invention. Its restraint is its power, offering immersive, near-silent revelations.
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Oasis of Peace
PALLETTE
Released 21 February 2025
ROHS! RECORDS
*****
An ambient soundscape of memory, place and quiet endurance — field recordings from Palestinian locales woven into spacious electronic textures that invite reflection as both witness and meditation.
Tokyo-based sound artist Pallette moves fluidly between ambient composition, field recording and sonic exploration, shaping works that merge environmental presence with contemplative electronic form. Often releasing through the experimental Lᴏɴᴛᴀɴᴏ Series label, Pallette’s music tends toward immersive palettes where sparse gestures and textured soundscapes allow both breadth and depth of feeling.
With Oasis of Peace, Pallette places these sensibilities in direct dialogue with lived landscapes, incorporating field recordings captured throughout Palestine, from Ramallah and Bethlehem to the Old City of Jerusalem and drawing listeners into the sonic detail of streets, checkpoints, bells and ambient life. The result feels both elegiac and alive: a document of place shaped by attention and empathy.
Oasis of Peace unfolds over twelve tracks and roughly seventy-minutes of sound that feels simultaneously delicate and substantial. Pallette’s approach is generous in patience: lengthy segments such as “All the Demolished Palestinian Homes of East Jerusalem” (nearly thirty minutes) serve as ambient panoramas, where subtle drones, environmental ambience and field recordings from real streets and spaces blur into extended listening experiences.
Interspersed are shorter, evocative movements like Morning in Bayt Laḥm and Church bell of Bayt Laḥm, where the resonance of place established by a bell's toll, distant footsteps and other sounds, becomes texture and theme in equal measure.
Other tracks like Al-Quds and Qalandia Checkpoint bring cityscape and daily life into focus without narrative imposition, so that ambient tone and recorded detail cohere. The album’s strength lies in this balance between environmental material and carefully shaped ambient composition, evoking both the fragility and persistence of place.
Ironically titled, Oasis of Peace doesn’t offer easy solace or overt political commentary, but rather a contemplative listening space that honours the aural life of its recorded locations and transforms them into sustained mood and reflection.
Links:
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Story of a Traveler
TOMER COHEN
Released 7 February 2025
Hypnote
****-
A sophisticated jazz suite that achieves excellence through its fluid compositions and the telepathic synergy of a world-class quartet.
Tomer Cohen is an Israeli-born, New York-based jazz guitarist and composer whose work is deeply informed by his life as a global citizen. His style is a melodic blend of Middle Eastern folk influences, post-bop complexity, and a modern, cinematic approach to storytelling. Cohen is known for his clean, articulate guitar tone and his ability to lead ensembles that prioritize collective atmosphere over individual showmanship. Following the success of his debut Not the Same River (2023), Cohen has solidified his place in the contemporary jazz scene as a composer who values thematic development and narrative arc, treating each track as a vital chapter in an ongoing musical travelogue.
While Cohen’s guitar provides the narrative compass, the album’s innovation is fueled by a stellar quartet. Shai Maestro’s piano brings a sophisticated melodic richness, weaving intricate threads that elevate Cohen’s folk-inspired motifs. This is anchored by the musicianship of Cyrille Obermüller, whose bass lines provide both a rhythmic foundation and a melodic counterpoint, and the dynamic drumming of Gert-Jan Dreessen drives the music forward with a rare blend of subtlety and power.
Cohen exercises a restraint reminiscent of Julian Lage or Bill Frisell - a dedication to melodic storytelling over technical showmanship - allowing these diverse musical palettes, from Jazz to Middle Eastern textures, to breathe. Each track serves as a vivid "chapter" of his personal journey, achieving true excellence in its arrangement. The result is a sincere and insightful narrative that resonates with the listener's own sense of wanderlust. It is a masterful, traveler’s document.
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Love Letters / رسائل حب
SAINT LEVANT
Released 14 February 2025
SALXCO
*****
Where war silences voices, Saint Levant answers with radical tenderness and unapologetic presence.
Following the global attention following the release of Deira, Saint Levant continues to articulate diasporic Palestinian experience through an inventive blend of trilingual lyrics and global pop idioms. Rooted in Gaza and the Levant, yet shaped by exile, his work connects sensuality, spirituality, and displacement in a voice that’s poetic, media-savvy, and politically attuned.
Love Letters / رسائل حب is Saint Levant’s most direct and personal statement yet — a concise 6-track release that fuses romantic metaphor with historical memory.
Released on Valentine’s day, this is a compilation of new music by Saint Levant, each song representing an ode to different aspects of his world – triumphant, reflective, hopeful, and heartfelt.
Spanning two discs the songs are grouped:
an "A" side that expresses its love through Arab & North African styles; and a "B" side that has Levant adopt a western 80’s funk approach - his take on contemporary pop.
The album opens with “DALOONA / دلعونة”, a rousing collaboration with Palestinian folk-pop stalwarts Qasem AlNajjar and Shadi Alborini. Drawing on traditional wedding chant form but flipping it into protest dancefloor mode, it sets a defiant tone.
The hybridized club track “WAZIRA / وزيرة” follows with Levant delivering flirtatious praise for a powerful Arab woman, part fantasy, part iconography.
“KALAMANTINA / كلمنتينا,” perhaps the catchiest of the set, merges trap rhythm with dabke footwork, its layered double-meanings functioning as both tender affection and political allusion.
On “DIVA / بنت الذهبية,” Levant’s vocal restraint highlights a silky, R&B-influenced production. The instrumentation is minimal, allowing space for melodic vulnerability. “WAIN MAADY WAIN / وين معدي وين” slows the tempo dramatically, swaying between heartbreak and dislocation, with lyrical phrasing that echoes the ache of permanent separation.
Closer “EXILE / معاكي” is a standout - a romantic love letter steeped in the sorrow of diaspora, expressed in a mix of longing and resignation.
Released on February 14, 2025, Love Letters is as much an album about love as it is about survival. It was created during the Israeli assault on Gaza that began after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, events which cast a heavy shadow. While not didactic, every beat and lyric here carries the subtext of loss, yearning, and exile. The intimacy of these songs feels like a coping mechanism — sonic letters to beloveds near and far, alive or absent, real or remembered.
Read more... Saint Levant
Resisei Lyla
YOSEF GUTMAN
Released 16 January 2025
Soul Song Records
****-
Modest, soulful playing that radiates a thoughtful beauty: a bright colored land of sound that’s drawn by the quill of the soul, tradition and world music influences.
Night falls differently in Jerusalem. For Yosef Gutman Levitt, those twilight hours when Hasidic melodies known as “nigunim” drift from neighborhood windows have shaped a musical vision both traditional and urgently contemporary. After stepping away from New York's jazz scene for over a decade—building a tech company, raising a family—the bassist returned to music with a question: What happens when “nigunim” meet the precision and improvisational musings of modern jazz? It's here, in these fragmented moments between night and day, that the South African-born musician has crafted Resisei Lyla (fragments of night)—an album that doesn't so much fuse jazz with Jewish mysticism as reveal an old kinship.
The title itself, drawn from Shir Hashirim, speaks to a knowing that transcends the sensory world. "This knowing, according to Jewish mysticism, is called 'Darkness,'" Levitt explains, his voice carrying the weight of years spent navigating between Manhattan's jazz clubs and Jerusalem's sacred study halls. "However, when it fragments and allows little slivers of light through coming into feeling, it's an immense sense of clarity and love." It's precisely this fragmentation—of tradition, of expectation, of musical boundaries—that defines his latest work.
For Levitt, whose journey from Berklee College to tech entrepreneur to Jerusalem-based composer reads like a modern parable, Resisei Lyla represents both reunion and revelation. The album reunites him with pianist Omri Mor, cellist Yoed Nir, and guitarist Tal Yahalom—collaborators whose musical telepathy was forged during 2024's luminous The World and Its People. Yet the return of percussionist Itamar Doari, fresh from three years in India, brings unexpected depth to familiar chemistry.
The two-day recording session in Levitt's Jerusalem studio began hours before the first note. Levitt and Doari spent the morning arranging percussion instruments, the practical work opening space for the kind of unhurried conversation that charts where lives have gone. "It was exciting and emotionally nurturing to have connected with him," Levitt recalls. “His presence radiates focused intensity. You hear it immediately—the way he engages with his instruments.”
Read more...
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Maryam
FARAJ SULIEMAN
Released 17 January 2025
Faraj Sulieman
****-
A brief yet potent song cycle where love turns to anguish under the weight of war.
Palestinian composer-pianist Faraj Suleiman (born Rameh, based in Paris) blends Arabic modal lyricism with jazz, rock, and folk. On Maryam, he steps into the singer-songwriter domain, collaborating with poet‑actor Amer Hlehel and vocalist Dima Zahran to narrate a fragile love story shaped by war and displacement.
Maryam marks a deep tonal pivot for Suleiman, from instrumental jazz toward sung songcraft.
The album’s arc reflects life before and amid war: tracks begin light ("Packed Love") then shift toward grief, memory, and existential rupture.
Dima Zahran’s vocal contributions on “Packed Love” and “Fragments of Memory” lend fragile warmth over minimalist synth beds and echoed piano lines.
The mid-album turning point is “Music of Black Finale”, the only instrumental, where dark trumpet and guitar motifs evoke a dream's end.
Vocally, Suleiman becomes more expressive, as “I Run, Scream, Mariam.” (lyrics by Amer Hlehel), articulates a visceral scream into silence, as an act of defiance.
Sonically, Maryam straddles folk, Brechtian jazz and indie rock with synthesizer pulses, minor-key melodies and occasional rhythmic softly punchy beats. Themes of love, loss, fragmentation, and endurance are never explicitly political, yet the emotional weight is unmistakable.
Read more... Faraj Sulieman
Mitz LaMax
VARIOUS ARTISTS
Released 9 December 2024
Marom Entertainment
****-
An epic rap anthology: 71 artists, 16 tracks, one cultural movement.
Produced by veteran hip-hop host-producer Tomer Gershenman (with Matan Sharon and Roy Doron), Mitz LaMax brought together 71 Israeli rappers spanning 16 new tracks featuring voices including Tuna, Ravid Plotnik, Peled, Sima Noon, Jimbo J, Kobi Oz, Eden Derso and Shaanan Streett, offering a panoramic snapshot of Israeli hip-hop evolution and state-of-play.
Mitz LaMax unfolds as a ceebratory mosaic rather than a single artist narrative, with each song typically performed by multiple rappers. This results in dense multi-voice collages that oscillate between youthful energy and veteran lyricism. Listeners encounter trap, boom-bap revival, Mizrahi-infused flows and introspective spoken-rap, all delivered in Hebrew, with occasional English or Arabic phases.
The opening tracks set a bold tone, combining classic boom-bap rhythms with mashups of regional pop styles. Featured stars like Jimbo J and Tuna deliver punchy verses rooted in Israeli street vernacular, while Ravid Plotnik and Eden Derso add melodic flair. Though individual standout tracks vary by listener preference, the overarching effect is communal: the album feels like a live mixtape taped across decades and scenes. Production hallmarks include boom-bap drums, ambient synths, Middle Eastern percussion and occasional funk horns, giving textural breadth to the anthology.
Much of the material for Mitz LaMax was recorded ahead of the October 7 Hamas attack and subsequent conflict, but the project took a deliberate pause afterward out of respect and uncertainty.
Gershenman and team considered shelving it, but ultimately pushed forward, describing the eventual completion as cathartic, a collective release during Israel’s darkening backdrop.
Some tracks reference the emotional undercurrents of wartime: lyrics touch on unresolved loss, solidarity, and the fragility of everyday life amid crisis. While never overtly political, the album’s timing and collective voice produce a subtle statement: Israeli rap exists, persists, and evolves even under siege.
Read more... Times of Israel
Fun One
OZ NOY, DAVID KIKOSKI,
CLARENCE PENN, JAMES GENUS
Released 29 November 2024
Criss Cross Jazz
****-
A deft and swaggering reconstruction of familiar jazz terrain, as genre-bending guitar in an acoustic quartet: rooted in tradition and refreshed by personality.
Israeli-born guitarist Oz Noy has long navigated a path between jazz, fusion, blues and funk with remarkable fluency. Based in New York since the 1990s, Noy has built a reputation as a stylistic omnivore, equally at home electrifying funk-inflected grooves as he is exploring more exploratory jazz forms. Across a prolific discography that spans solo albums, collaborations and countless live performances worldwide, his playing combines technical clarity with a restless musical imagination.
Fun One is another a notable entry in his catalogue: his debut on the prestigious Criss Cross Jazz label and a project that foregrounds jazz standards and originals through the lens of quartet dynamics with pianist David Kikoski, bassist James Genus and drummer Clarence Penn.
Drawing on a repertoire that set re-interpretations of jazz landmarks from Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, Clifford Brown, John Coltrane and others between two Noy originals - the title track and closer "Improv 1", the album positions itself firmly within the jazz standard lexicon, while shrewdly subverting expectation.
The title track kicks things off with an infectious groove, showcasing Noy’s fluent bebop lines and rhythmic buoyancy alongside a rhythm section that’s both tight and responsive. Other tracks like Chuck Wayne's "Solar" and John Lewis' "Milestones" retain their recognizable structures yet are recast through subtle rhythmic shifts and harmonic nuance, allowing the quartet to balance reverence with reinvention.
Standout moments include an imaginative "Ruby My Dear" (Monk) that leans into lyricism and spaciousness, and a contemplative take on "Giant Steps" (Coltrane) that slows the familiar whirlwind into a dream-like progression.
The set closer is an open-ended solo improvisation that feels like a summation of Noy’s adventurous yet rooted aesthetic.
Fun One doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it refracts it through a player of distinct personality - a mature, engaging statement from a guitarist of rare versatility.
Links:
Oz Noy Home Page
Clicking cover art opens Spotify
Soundtrack to the Struggle -
Vol. 3
LOWKEY
Released 28 October 2024
****-
The third volume of a fiercely articulate trilogy that marries razor-sharp political hip-hop with deeply personal reflection, reaffirming Lowkey as one of the most provocative and uncompromising voices in conscious rap.
Born Kareem Dennis in London to Iraqi and English heritage, Lowkey stands as a defining figure in UK political hip-hop, a rapper whose work consistently refuses passive complacency and whose lyrics interrogate power, identity and injustice with rare directness. Across his career, he has collaborated with figures such as Immortal Technique, Dead Prez and Klashnekoff, and his music mixes classical boom-bap instincts with incisive social critique. Despite no major-label backing - and visible attempts by establishment forces to suppress his platform - Lowkey’s work resonates globally, weaving personal biography with sustained activism. Soundtrack to the Struggle is his emblematic project, a longform opus rooted in resistance, memory and lyrical urgency.
As a trilogy, Soundtrack to the Struggle may be approached as both historical document and living manifesto. The original 2011 Vol. 1 introduced Lowkey’s fiercely political voice - unflinching critiques of imperialism, systemic inequality and media spin, over a diverse sonic palette that weaves boom-bap, soul and introspective grooves. Vol. 2 refined this outlook with even sharper focus, bringing collaborators like Noam Chomsky into dialogue with layered soundscapes and structural critique. Vol. 3 continues the lineage amid a fraught global moment, blending protest poetry and historical memory with verses that tackle war, surveillance, global inequality and solidarity.
Songs such as Genocide Joe and Palestine Will Never Die anchor the project in contemporary struggle while others, like Baby Steps turn inward, revealing a more vulnerable side to Lowkey’s lyrical persona.
Across all three volumes of Soundtrack to the Struggle, Lowkey’s long-standing collaborator Mai Khalil has played a steady, indispensable role — her compositions, background vocal textures and co-production sensibilities helping to shape the emotional resonance and sonic consistency of the project’s layered soundscapes.
Whether firing political indictments or offering personal testimony, Lowkey’s delivery remains taut, thoughtful and unrelentingly engaged — a hallmark of his artistry that places substance over easy hooks and demands active listening.
Links:
Wikipedia
Brightlight
AVISHAI COHEN
Released 25 October 2024
naive
****-
A radiant testament to jazz evolution: bold, poetic and rooted in global heritage.
Avishai Cohen is an Israeli double bassist, composer, and vocalist whose career spans collaborations with Chick Corea and decades of boundary-pushing trio recordings. Known for melding jazz improvisation with Middle Eastern, classical, and folk motifs, he continues to shape contemporary jazz with quiet confidence and emotional breadth.
Brightlight features Cohen’s core trio - pianist Guy Moskovich and drummer Roni Kaspi, alongside bassist and vocalist Cohen - augmented by standout showings from saxophonist Yuval Drabkin and a broad support ensemble including flugelhorn, trumpet, trombone, guitar, flute and guest vocals.
The album opens with “Courage,” a dynamic showcase of Cohen’s rhythmic bass drive, punctuated by Moskovich’s inventive motifs and Kaspi’s assertive drum crescendos, setting a tone of forward momentum. The title track “Brightlight” rides a luminous melodic arc, the trio weaving contrapuntal interplay that feels optimistic yet grounded. “Hope,” “Humility,” and “Drabkin” (named after the saxophonist) explore contrasting textures: meditative, soulful, and occasionally exuberant. “Roni’s Swing” is a tribute to Kaspi’s youthful energy, tight and rhythmically playful. Cohen’s luminous reimaginations of standards include a shimmering, ska- and Afrobeat-inflected “Summertime”, and a delicate rendition of “Polka Dots and Moonbeams,” where Drabkin’s saxophone and Cohen’s bass converse with graceful restraint. “Liebestraum No 3,” a nod to Liszt, further expands the trio’s expressive range.
The album balances adventurous composition with emotional clarity: Cohen integrates idioms from classical, folk, and world music without sacrificing cohesion. moments of intensity sit alongside serene reflection. The ensemble’s interplay is supple, honed, and relaxed—proof of deep trust between musicians spanning generations.
Though Brightlight does not engage explicitly with the political upheavals in Israel or Gaza during 2023-24, its release in late 2024 may be seen as an affirmation of artistic continuity amid regional turbulence. In a fracturing moment for Israeli Jewish artists, including Israeli jazz touring disruptions and controversy over performances in Russia, Brightlight reasserts creation and dialogue.
Read more ... Avishai Cohen
Bdl Faqed
SHAMALY
Released 15 October 2024
Marjam
****-
A set of intimate songs that deal with loss and dislocation, delivered in a pulsating, Arabic rapped flow that manages to carry emotional weight.
Shamaly is a songwriter and producer whose work sits between alternative pop, regional folk sensibilities and understated electronic production. Singing primarily in Arabic, he treats language as texture, rhythm and emotional signal. The title refers to the bureaucratic term for replacing lost identification papers - a grimly apt metaphor for a person trying to reconstruct their identity after their home and community have been destroyed that signals the EP’s emotional terrain before a note is played.
The album is a raw, nine-minute chronicle of survival, recorded by the 23-year-old rapper as he moved from the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza to temporary safety in Cairo.
Rather than positioning herself as a storyteller with clear resolutions, Shamaly works in fragments, reflections and interior states.
Opening track "Taq" (or "Ta5") - an onomatopoeia for a gunshot or explosion ("Bang") wrestles with the sensory overload of war. Shamaly asks his family if the sounds they are hearing are gunshots or falling rubble, eventually rapping: "Am I hearing it right or not? I only heard the airstrike." It captures the fatalism of daily life where sounds of violence become a constant, confusing rhythm.
Written while watching Khan Younis burn from a shelter in Rafah, "Falatan" is the emotional core of the EP. The lyrics serve as a "living testament" or a chilling epitaph. He raps about entrusting his soul to God and freeing himself from doubt through his writing: "I wrote my lines with my hand, freeing myself from all my doubts. I did everything that was necessary."
"Sa7" ("Right") is more pensive track that questions what it means to do things "the right way" when the social and physical world is collapsing. It critiques the limitations placed on Gazan youth and the repetition of trauma: "There’s no mercy, no repentance / Our days are repeated on the same note."
Finally, "Bastana Feek" ("Waiting for You") is a pleasant surprise - a love song, shaped by it's "liquid" drum & bass production. It describes a connection formed in a shelter in Rafah. The lyrics explore the guilt and surrealism of feeling love during a genocide: "How many times did I feel? My heart is full and hungry and I found my smile in you."
Vocally, Shamaly delivers with restraint, often hovering just above speech. This speak-sung quality allows the lyrics to feel conversational and internal, as if overheard rather than performed. The production mirrors that intimacy, keeping arrangements sparse so the language remains central even when its meaning is deliberately opaque.
What’s striking is how the EP communicates across linguistic boundaries. You don’t need to grasp every word to feel the emotional temperature. Tone, pacing and repetition do much of the work, turning the lyrics into carriers of mood rather than information. Bdl Faqed doesn’t explain its losses, it sits with them, and invites the listener to do the same.
Read more... Scene Noise Magazine
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THE VANDALIST
NOGA EREZ
Released 20 September 2024
City Slang / Atlantic
****-
A high-gloss, satirical explosion of alternative pop that weaponizes irony and precision-engineered beats to dismantle modern celebrity culture.
Noga Erez is an Israeli singer, songwriter, and producer known for her sharp, rhythmic "hip-pop" that blends political subtext with dancefloor-ready production. Working alongside her creative and life partner Ori Rousso, Erez has built a reputation for visual and sonic maximalism. Her style is characterized by staccato vocal deliveries, glitchy electronic textures, and a defiant, often satirical lyrical perspective. Since her 2017 debut Off The Radar, she has evolved from an underground experimentalist into a global pop provocateur, consistently using her platform to interrogate power structures and the anxieties of the digital age with biting wit.
THE VANDALIST finds Noga Erez operating at a level of production excellence that few of her peers can match. The album is a masterpiece of arrangement, where every snap, synth-pop hook, and brass flourish feels intentional and sharp. Unlike the "songwriter demos" you've previously critiqued, this is a fully realized, world-class pop statement.
The innovation here lies in Erez's ability to blend the satirical "bite" of a Randy Newman with a futuristic, bass-heavy soundscape. Her vocal delivery is more versatile than ever; on tracks like "Vandalist" and "PC People," she oscillates between a nonchalant, rap-influenced flow and soaring, melodic hooks with seamless ease. While some might find the relentless irony exhausting, the musicianship—particularly the inventive percussion and sampling—is undeniable. It is a work of originality that confirms Erez isn't just following pop trends; she is actively vandalizing them to build something entirely her own.
Read more... Noga Erez Home Page
Verbathim
NEMAHSIS
Released 13 September 2024
verbathim
****-
Unapologetic alt-pop as political and poetic testimony.
Toronto-based Palestinian-Canadian singer-songwriter Nemah Hasan (Nemahsis) uses candid lyricism and shifting genres to confront identity, cultural alienation and self-acceptance. Verbathim marks her debut as a pop provocateur, forged through political pressure and personal reckoning, under her own self-released imprint.
The album unfolds as a tightly wound emotional journey, balancing fragments of self-doubt, resistance and reclamation.
“Old Body, New Mind” opens with lo-fi distorted guitar and hypnotic, minimal production, a metaphor for transformation. The refrain “I’m not supposed to be back here... My memories lead me back” hints at both alienation and return.
On “You Wore It Better”, dreamy harpsichord and gentle percussion frame lyrics about self-comparison and insecurity: “these are 501 jeans, they'll look better on anyone but me.”
“Coloured Concrete” gradually builds from wavering electronics into a cathartic pop moment, an anthem of waking up into selfhood, grounded by lyrics about perseverance in everyday life.
Mid-album tracks like “Miss Construed” and “Spinning Plates” employ artful wordplay and structural shifts, the latter (no relation to the Radiohead classic of the same name) features spoken-word and fragmented rhythms, a raw act of introspection that Nemahsis described as “the most truthful, courageous thing I’ve ever done.”
“Fine Print” alternates compressed spoken word clips, creatively autotuned verses and piano pulses and whip-snapping percussion as it builds to its crescendo and a lyrical refusal to let external judgment define identity: “I don’t wanna let in the outside.”
“Delusion” and “Dead Giveaway” push sharp rhythms against bold sentiments (“you could plead guilty and I will do the time”) all the while maintaining the album's narrative vulnerability. The album's most streamed song, “Stick of Gum” combines love song and personal anthem, set to a jaunty marching beat.
Finally, “Chemical Mark”, closes the set with a sparse loop of piano, guitar, synth and distorted vocals, inspired by a study that the artist read about how impacts of trauma induced stress can be passed down across generations - a lyric that is of course deeply disturbing and significant in context of the generation-spanning turmoil in Palestine.
Read more... Nemahsis
Unity
YOSEF GUTMAN, ITAY SHER
Released 30 August 2024
Soul Song Records & Yosef Gutman
****-
A quietly profound chamber-infused reinterpretation of Jewish liturgical melodies that blends devotional depth with contemporary acoustic and orchestral sophistication.
Prolific bassist, composer and improviser Yosef Gutman (also known as Yosef Gutman Levitt) has spent years navigating a creative path that moves comfortably between jazz, chamber music and devotional sound worlds. Born in South Africa and based in Jerusalem, Gutman’s work often draws on nigunim (Hasidic wordless melodies) and deep spiritual feeling while welcoming improvisational and harmonic breadth. Collaborating regularly with reed player Gilad Ronen and a global roster of musicians, his recent projects tend toward reflective exploration rather than overt spectacle.
For Unity, he teams with classical guitarist Itay Sher, whose nylon-string lines weave seamlessly with Gutman’s bass and the chamber ensemble, shaping contemplative, richly layered arrangements rooted in tradition and reimagined through a 21st-century lens.
Unity is a nine-track tapestry in which ancient devotional motifs and modern acoustic sensibility meet. At its core are nigunim, liturgical melodies traditionally sung without words, that are re-contextualised through harmonic invention and restrained orchestral colour.
The opening two parts of “Tsama Lecha Nafshi,” a soulful nigun associated with longing and spiritual yearning, set the tone: delicate guitar and bass lines unfurl over subtle chamber flourishes that feel meditative rather than ornamental.
Tracks like “Kremenchoger” and “Nigun Ga’aguim” build in mirrored parts, offering both simplicity and structural depth, while original pieces by Sher such as “The Way Back Home” and Rain Melody expand the album’s expressive range without disrupting its overall coherence.
Throughout, the chamber orchestra (arranged by Gilad Ronen) adds warmth and breadth, reminding listeners that these melodies are living languages capable of transformation. Unity doesn’t seek dramatic shifts; its power lies in spacious interplay, reflective pacing and its respectful yet imaginative reframing of tradition, an evocative listening experience that invites contemplation as much as appreciation.
Read more...
Yosef Gutman Home Page
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Only Love Remains
YEMEN BLUES
Released 28 August 2024
Yemen Blues / Kartel Music Group
****-
A restless collision of ancestral pulse and 21st-century groove in a world-spanning fusion that embraces complexity with open arms and an unwavering belief in unifying power of music.
Yemen Blues is a global collective led by Yemenite-Israeli vocalist and gimbri player Ravid Kahalani, threading together musical threads from the Middle East, Africa, jazz, blues, funk and beyond. Since emerging around 2010, the group has defied simplistic categorisation, framing music as a shared language rather than a genre box.
Kahalani’s ancient Yemenite vocal inflections, steeped in Arabic and Hebrew traditions, meet hypnotic polyrhythms and electrified grooves, reflecting lived multiplicity and cultural syncretism.
With Only Love Remains, Yemen Blues continue their cross-continental dialogue, shaping a sound that feels both deeply rooted and thrillingly unconstrained. The album marks a bold evolution for the band, forging a path between visceral immediacy and spiritual breadth. Built from sketches and collective improvisation over a focused two-week studio period, the album feels alive — a document of musicians in flow rather than a neatly pre-figured blueprint. Ravid Kahalani’s vocals, alternating between Arabic, Hebrew and expressive wordless utterance, weave through a tapestry of styles: Bedouin folk rhythms, gnawa trance grooves, blues grit and bursts of funk and jazz propulsion. While the title cut and “Prayers” pulse with communal resonance, “Miss Ballad” brings a tender, personal dimension rooted in fatherhood and identity. The production favors rhythm and space, letting percussion and gimbri carry much of the narrative energy, yet there’s an unmistakable warmth in the interplay that rewards attentive listening.
In an era marked by division and cultural anxiety, Only Love Remains stands as an inclusive, joyful testament to music’s connective potential, unconstrained by borders yet grounded in ancient lineage.
Links:
Yemen Blues Home Page
GLORY
NISSIM BLACK
Released 14 August 2024
Marom Entertainment
****-
Hasidic faith meets cinematic energy, in an album born of purpose and perseverance.
Nissim Black (born Damian Jamohl Black) is an American‑Israeli Hasidic rapper and singer based in Beit Shemesh, a city located approximately 30 kilometres (19 mi) west of Jerusalem and a center of Haredi Judaism and Modern Orthodoxy. A former Seattle hip-hop artist who converted to Orthodox Judaism in 2013, Black blends rap, R&B, gospel and spiritual introspection into a contemporary sound anchored in faith, identity and social resilience.
Spanning 17 tracks, Glory ranges through rap, pop, R&B and gospel-infused anthems. From the declarative opener “Take the Crown” to the reflective ballad “Inner Peace” and the climactic “Rejuvenation,” the album demonstrates Black’s confidence in both lyrical and vocal range. He sings subtly on tracks like “Love Me” and “Better,” while earnest addresses like “Ayeh” ask the timeless question: “Where, God, is Your place of glory?”.
“Speed Dial” functions as a central anthem, mixing devotion and urgency with a chant-like refrain urging listeners to connect with God in times of struggle (“calling you whenever they push me down”).
Originally slated for a November 2023 release, Glory was postponed due to the October 7 Hamas attacks and Israel’s ensuing crisis. Black chose to delay out of solemn respect but felt the album eventually needed to be heard for its message of light amid darkness.
Read more ... Nissom Black
Why Ten?
YOSEF-GUTMAN LEVITT
Released 21 June 2024
Soul Sing Records
****-
Bassist Yosef-Gutman Levitt's modest, soulful playing radiates a thoughtful beauty, a bright colored land of sound. A sound that’s drawn by the quill of the soul, tradition and world music influences, something completely unique and ever changing. A music that is rooted in Jerusalem but draws on global inspirations.
“Why Ten?", which features Israeli guitarist Gilad Hekselman follows up Levitt’s 2023 release “Soul Song" (with Lionel Loueke)" and "The World and its People" in February 2024.
Why Ten? references the symbolism of the number 10 in Jewish mysticism, in particular the ten utterances of creation, as recorded in the Torah, and the ten supernal sefirot, from kabbalah. The ten utterances represent foundational principles through which the universe came into being, in all its complexity and intentionality. The ten supernal sefirot are attributes or emanations through which the Infinite Divine reveals itself, embodying various facets of existence, from wisdom and understanding to beauty and sovereignty, forming a bridge between the finite and the infinite.
Read more ... Jazz Guitar Today
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My Prophet
ODED TZUR
Released 7 June 2024
ECM
****-
A meditative masterwork of restraint and breath, where spiritual jazz meets ECM’s hush.
Israeli-born saxophonist Oded Tzur is known for his serene, raga-influenced phrasing and breath-like tone. Now based in New York and signed to ECM, he leads a refined quartet featuring pianist Nitai Hershkovits, bassist Petros Klampanis and drummer Cyrano Almeida.
My Prophet continues Tzur’s search for musical mysticism through modal jazz minimalism by offering a suite of hushed revelations - an ECM recording in the truest sense, filled with space, precision and introspection.
Tzur's tenor saxophone tone remains as supple and haunting as ever, shaped by Indian classical technique yet applied with the restraint of a seasoned improviser. His melodies rise and fall like breathwork or prayer, rarely exceeding a whisper but rich in emotional depth.
Nitai Hershkovits, now a key ECM collaborator, continues to impress, offering delicate counterpoint and tonal shading. His phrasing on the title track echoes the quiet drama of Paul Bley or the harmonic spaciousness of Tord Gustavsen. Klampanis and Almeida are remarkably unobtrusive, but their presence is felt in the ensemble’s calm propulsion and careful dynamics.
There’s little in the way of overt drama here, but My Prophet rewards close listening. Tzur avoids harmonic clutter and thematic density in favor of micro-shifts in timbre and mood. The quartet functions less as a jazz combo and more as a meditative chamber ensemble, bridging modal jazz, spiritual improvisation and European art music traditions. ECM’s signature production bathes everything in reverb and stillness, an album that whispers its truths and trusts you’ll lean in to receive them.
Read more... ECM
Deira
SAINT LEVANT
Released 7 June 2024
SALXCO
****-
Sensual, sorrowful, and self-assured, Deira is a trilingual love letter from the eye of the storm.
Saint Levant (Marwan Abdelhamid) is a Palestinian-French-Algerian-Serbian artist born in Jerusalem, raised in Gaza, and exiled to Jordan before settling in Los Angeles. A fluent performer in Arabic, English, and French, he channels diasporic identity, romantic intimacy, and political disquiet into a genre-fluid blend of trap, raï, alternative R&B, and spoken poetry.
Deira, released on June 7, 2024, is a compact, 8-track album that distills Saint Levant’s distinctive aesthetic: sparse, bilingual, emotionally charged and politically aware.
Just over 20 minutes in duration, it plays more like a cinematic suite than a traditional debut, each track building a mood as much a narrative. The opener “On This Land” (with Palestinian Sol Band) sets the tone: sombre, poetic and steeped in longing.
“Forgive Me” and “Galbi” follow with low-key production and Levant’s signature lyrical layering of romantic regret and cultural memory.
There’s real chemistry in the collaborations: Algerian raï icon Cheb Bilal adds gravitas to “Let Her Go” while Kehlani’s guest verse on “Allah Yihmeeki” feels remarkably fluid in its interplay between Arabic and English.
MC Abdul’s appearance on the title track “Deira” anchors the album’s closing with a generational reminder of Gaza’s resilience. The production (led by Khalil Cherradi) leans minimalist but rich, relying on subtle synths, ambient percussion, and the pacing of a reflective monologue.
Deira is fragmentary journal, a cohesive and moody offering from an artist stepping fully into his voice.
Though conceived in part before the October 7 attacks, Deira was released amid one of the most traumatic periods in modern Palestinian history. Saint Levant’s voice throughout the album is imbued with a palpable heaviness, an almost premonitory grief.
Read more... Saint Levant
96 Miles From Bethlehem
BELLY
Released 30 May 2024
SALXCO
****-
A sharp, reflective hip-hop statement that threads Palestinian identity, diaspora memory and modern rap craft into Belly’s most grounded and emotionally coherent album to date.
Palestinian-Canadian rapper and songwriter Belly has long occupied a space between mainstream hip hop and introspective, politically aware storytelling. Born in Jenin and raised in Ottawa, his work frequently engages themes of displacement, cultural memory, and the contradictions of success in the West.
After early acclaim in Canada, Belly established himself internationally through collaborations with The Weeknd, Jay-Z and Nas, while continuing to refine a voice rooted in personal history rather than spectacle. Across projects like Up For Days (2015) and See You Next Wednesday (2021), he has balanced lyrical precision with atmospheric production. 96 Miles From Bethlehem represents a tightening of focus: less concerned with flexing range, more invested in clarity, context, and emotional truth.
This is Belly’s most deliberate and thematically unified album, framing identity and inheritance through a chill-but-confident hip-hop lens.
The title references both geographic proximity (literally, the approximate distance between Bethlehem and Belly’s birthplace Jenin, in the West Bank) and emotional distance, grounding the record in questions of origin, exile and belonging.
Production is contemporary but measured - moody synths, restrained trap rhythms and subtle Middle Eastern inflections create space for narrative. Guest appearances from Saint Levant and Elyanna reinforce a shared diasporic perspective.
Lyrically, Belly avoids polemic, opting instead for lived detail: memory fragments, family references and reflections on moral responsibility sit alongside sharper industry commentary. Critics have noted the album’s maturity and cohesion, with Belly resisting trend-chasing in favour of mood, pacing and lyrical intent. The result is a record that feels quietly urgent - political without sloganising, personal without indulgence - positioning 96 Miles From Bethlehem as a significant statement within contemporary Palestinian-diaspora hip hop.
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Ma Lei Beit
BEDOUIN BURGER
ZEID HAMDEN, LYNN ADIB
Released 18 May 2024
Pop Arabia
****-
Ancient melodies and modern pulse converge in longing and belonging.
Paris‑based duo Bedouin Burger brings together Syrian composer-vocalist Lynn Adib and Lebanese underground pioneer Zeid Hamdan. Their debut album weaves Arabic folk (maqam, Bedouin lullabies, Levantine rhythms) with bold electronica and electro‑tarab aesthetics.
Ma Li Beit ("I Have No Home") portrays exile, memory, and musical freedom through sonic hybridity - a lyrical gesture of longing, intimate and expansive.
Lynn Adib’s vocals drift between the melodicly poeticicism of Andalusian muwashah, to Bedouin balladry, and Damascene melodies. Meanwhile, Zeid Hamdan’s production anchors tradition in a futuristic frame. It’s a meeting of warmth and edge, where plaintive poetry meets analog synthesis and irregular rhythms, becoming evocative of both folk lament and dance floor.
Opening with “Harir”, a silkily-textured lament originally crafted for film, the album sets a tone of elegiac beauty. “Taht El Wared” is the emotional centerpiece — Adib’s personal elegy is paired with beat-driven propulsion, the song’s title meaning "beneath the flowers" is both literal and metaphorical, drawing on loss and remembrance
“Nomad” and “Ya Man Hawa” pulse with nomadic energy, the energetic of the guitalele and Yemenite rhythms merging with ghostly vocals into a restless, hopeful dance. The Omar Souleyman-like “Dabkeh” turns folkloric circle dance into electro‑hoedown, melded through synths and mirrored by flute and percussion. “Esha” features Bu Nasser Touffar’s rap weaving into Adib’s melodies, expanding the emotional palette.
Throughout, Zeid’s beats remain spacious yet muscular: minimally layered but deeply felt.
Ma Li Beit is nomadic, stateless music - technical in sound and tender in spirit. The album's cohesion lies in tension: ancient forms meeting digital expression, sorrow confronting celebration.
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Solo: Miniatures & Tales
SHAI MAESTRO
Released 2 May 2024
naive / Sleeping Giant Music
****-
A bold emergence into pure solo expression, leaving ECM’s shade to define his own intimate space.
Solo: Miniatures & Tales marks a decisive new chapter in the career of Shai Maestro: this is his first entirely solo album and his first on French label Naïve Records after made his name with a series of landmark releases at ECM: as a former member of Avishai Cohen’s trio and as leader on a pair of acclaimed trio albums in his own - The Dream Thief (2018) and Human (2021).
He now embraces fully solo expression, balancing spontaneous improvisation and composition in equal measure.
The album is split into two parts: Miniatures (brief, spontaneous improvisations) and Tales (longer, structurally developed pieces).
Each section highlights his control of touch, phrasing, and form. Opening track “3 Colors” sets a rhythmic conversational tone, followed by inventive readings of standards like “All the Things You Are.” The longer pieces - “Gloria”, “From One Soul to Another”, “Mystery and Illusions”, build organically, layering melodies into nuanced crescendos before receding into reflective silence.
Where ECM offered him chamber-like trio dialogue under Eicher’s production, Naïve grants him unfiltered autonomy. The result feels human, unpolished and deeply personal - qualities reviewers have noted as courageous and refreshing in the solo jazz idiom.
Maestro embraces silence, space, harmonic tension and release, revealing a pianist unafraid to leave the stage empty and let the music speak alone.
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Woledto
ELYANNA
Released 12 April 2024
SALXCO
****-
Arabic pop’s rising star finds clarity and command in a coming-of-age statement.
Elyanna, a Palestinian-Chilean singer raised in Nazareth and now based in Los Angeles, blends Arabic lyrics with Western pop, trap, and R&B stylings. Mentored by Nasri Atweh and signed to Universal Arabic Music, she’s the first artist to perform a Coachella set entirely in Arabic, signalling a generational shift in global Arab music.
On Woledto (meaning "I Was Born" in Arabic) Elyanna carves out a confident and modern Arab-pop sound that balances diasporic longing with sleek cosmopolitan production. The album’s sequencing builds from moody, atmospheric ballads into assertive, rhythm-driven tracks, offering a textured narrative arc that mirrors a journey of self-assertion and transformation.
Standouts like “Mama Eh” and “Ghareeb Alay” showcase her velvety vocal control and a gift for melody that transcends linguistic boundaries, while “Al Sham” and “Ala Bali” reveal a willingness to incorporate folkloric echoes without retreating into nostalgia.
The breakout single “Callin’U,” a haunting Arabic-language rework of Natacha Atlas’s version of the classic “Tom’s Diner,” threads sultry atmosphere with urgent vocal phrasing, demonstrating Elyanna’s ability to reinterpret diasporic influences into sleek, contemporary pop.
Meanwhile, “Ganeni”, with its stripped-back percussion and chant-like hook, strikes a balance between vulnerability and allure, rooted in her characteristic blend of intimacy and theatrical poise.
The production, handled by Issam Alnajjar, Elyanna herself, and her long-time collaborator Nasri, is clean and cinematic, often pulling in reverb-heavy trap beats, dabke grooves and strings that nod to Levantine maqams without overexertion.
Rather than bending to Anglo expectations, Elyanna leans further into Arabic lyrical storytelling and personal identity, resulting in an album that feels regionally grounded and globally poised.
Woledto asserts that Arab-language pop, driven by diasporic innovation, can be both deeply rooted and daringly future-facing.
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