Word: lutes
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...some commercial success, Taha's mix of traditional and electronic instrumentation and beats, and his habit of singing in Arabic, has often led critics to classify his records as fusion or world music, a label that confounds him. Taha makes lavish use of traditional Arab instruments like the oud lute, and string and wind sections, driven forward by electric bass and guitars, rock backbeats, and even the odd hip-hop influence. "When the Beatles or Led Zep used Eastern influences or instruments, it was said to add ambiance or texture," he muses. "But when an Arab does that...
...hidden in the base. Hook it up to a CD player, stereo or TV, and the Ka-on relays the sound up the plants' stems. According to the company, gerberas and sunflowers perform well, and they'd suit the gentle strum of a samisen (a kind of Japanese lute). But can they handle heavy metal? Despite the assertion of people like Britain's Prince Charles that plants respond to the human voice, research has so far shown that flora are deaf to sound waves?your Ka-on creations will probably withstand whatever you pump through them...
...Eastern influences, rembetika first emerged from the bars and cafés of 1920s Piraeus, Athens' ancient port and onetime home to refugees from Turkey and other parts of Asia Minor. The style - with its gravel-voiced singers and the metallic twang of the bouzouki, a kind of Greek lute - became the sound of the urban underclass, with sharp, poignant lyrics about prison life, drugs and, during the military dictatorship of the 1960s and '70s, politics. Fans show their appreciation by throwing flowers, usually gardenias. Bring a bunch to Taximi, on 29 Isavron Street, Exarchia...
...Mandi, whose haunting admonitions make it a highlight, Traoré just sings about human interaction: "Give me a bit of what you are/ But do it with gentleness and tolerance." Traoré's spare arrangements use a variety of instruments, including a calabash harp called the bolon, an African lute called the n'goni and, on two tracks, the strings of San Francisco's acclaimed Kronos Quartet. But the songs are really designed to showcase the range of moods and colors in Traoré's own voice. On Mariama, a stirring call-and-response duet with veteran Ousmane Sacko...
...less an instrument than a symbolic weapon - an ax or a machine gun aimed at the complacent pop culture of the 50s. Performing his pansexual rite to a heavy bass line, Elvis set the primal image for rock: a man and his guitar, the tortured satyr and his magic lute. He also established the androgyny of the male star. Who needed girl singers, when a guy could provide his own sexual menace, long hair, coquetry and falsetto singing...