Alan Davey Vision Quest Request

[Jonathan Jarrett]

On Mon, 14 Dec 2009, Jonathan Smith wrote:

> It would work for sure! :) The idea of Arabic psychedelia sounds great. *
> Bellymetal* (Kephra seem to be its sole band) sounds too good to be true.
> There was Hassan i Sabbah....
>
> 2009/12/14 Carl Edlund Anderson <cea at carlaz.com>
>
>> On 14 Dec 2009, at 07:41 , Jonathan Smith wrote:
>>>> ..... in an infinitely probable alternate universe -- Alan's Bedouin has
>>>> recently produced a fine "Arabic space doom" concept album for Rise Above
>>>> based around Lovecraft's character "Abdul Alhazred". If only I could
>>>> dimension hop to the right universe in order to hear it! :)
>>>
>>> I'd love to hear that! Not that anyone's sanity would be intact after
>>> listening to it! ;)
>>
>> It would totally work, though, no?
>>
>> There's a list on MySpace of "oriental/arabic metal" groups --
>> http://groups.myspace.com/orientalmetal -- though I kind of dig the label
>> "bellymetal", which I hadn't encountered before but rather wish I had. :)
>>  The genre seems heavy on death/black metal groups ... but I totally see a
>> space in which psychedelically tinged doom, underlain by Alan's surging bass
>> lines, could play ....  Well, in that charmingly alternate universe, anyway!

 	A long time ago when Bedouin were still touring and I had 
something to do with putting them on in Cambridge, I actually talked with 
Alan about something similar to this; he wanted to find a female vocalist 
who could do genuine Arabian-style singing for the next Bedouin album (I 
can't remember if there was even one then, I'm pretty sure this was after 
Sean Masset left but I'm not even sure of that, it was a *long* time ago) 
so as to make music that really lived up to the potential of the name. 
It's therefore kind of weird to find him collaborating with Bridget 
Wishart again now! That's almost the antithesis of that plan! I'd like 
to think that if he'd found the sinder, it would have been the album you 
envision, Carl, it could completely have worked, you're right. And Rise 
Above would have been a natural home for it; we've often commented here, I 
remember, on how strange it was that Bedouin never crossed the 
space/stoner divide, which really isn't that big.

 	Also, congratulations on parenthood, since I'm running in my usual 
message timewarp here. It's easier than it seems when you're actually 
facing it, you will soon find out. But you were always good with children 
anyway so really this is just an excellent excuse to indulge that tendency 
:-) Good luck, yours,
 		      Jon

ObCD: Clutch - _Elephant Riders_
-- 
       Jonathan Jarrett, Cambridge    jjarrett at chiark.greenend.org.uk
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