Karkhana is a large Arabic supergroup exploring an intersection of traditional styles of music such as shaabi and tarab with psychedelic and free jazz improvisation. Their 1st release as a group was in 2015. Their latest album, a double LP called Al Azraqayn, was released in 2021 on Karlrecords.

The first piece "Nafas Kahrouba'i (Oud Intro)" is a whirlwind of unrelenting plucked strings, a dense and melodically complex scalar improvisation. The tone of the oud is dry, dusty and not as resonant as say, a sitar, but there are certainly a great many clever melodic embellishments within the agile, uniformly fast piece.

As someone largely unfamiliar with Middle Eastern music, my closest touchstone for something like this would be Ravi Shankar. Much like the Indian classical style played by Shankar, the pieces here are lengthy improvisations that dwell comfortably within a particular scale or tonality. Even when a piece draws to a furious, driving rhythmic crescendo, the tonality remains solid and predictable, for a hypnotic and meditative effect.

Our first real deviation from traditional music comes in the 2nd track, the other part of "Nafas Kahrouba'i", in the form of a rock beat from a drumset. It hardly seems to relate, rhythmically, to the restlessly plucked oud or the wailing horns that it shares a space with, and as such the music becomes an amorphous blob for a time. Unison is regained in the form of a plodding rock riff, and the krautrock influence becomes quite clear at this point, as a swirl of cold ambience sweeps around the solidity of the simple riff.

The next piece, "Sidi Mansour", is divided into 4 movements, beginning with a powerful drum solo, almost like a ritual drum call. The 2nd part of "Sidi Mansour" is a 70's flavoured jazz fusion workout with clever walking bass guitar lines and luminous shredding electric guitar leads. At this point, I am hugely impressed by the variety of the album and feel I am being taken on a wondrous trip by this masterful group. They've done an expert job of allowing the structure to dissolve away into exciting whimsical directions at opportune moments, while never losing the tonal cohesion and reverent mood of a spiritual quest that they establish with the album's traditional beginning.

After the driving energy and furious soloing of "Sidi Mansour (Pt 1)", there is a thoughtful and spacious solo from the bass guitar, whose shimmering harmonics draw us upward into a reverie, shattered or perhaps re-imagined by the introduction of a piercing, nasal saxophone, unafraid to growl and squeak, something like an insistent, over-loud morning bird refusing to let anyone sleep any longer. The cathartic squall of the sax is encircled by a thunderous tribal cascade of toms.

The final section of "Sidi Mansour" returns to the driving fusion style, yet this time somehow more cacophonous, drawing from later era Miles. Applause on the recording reveals that this is in fact a live performance. The relation between the different 'movements' of these pieces is abstract at best, but there is enough variety and contrast of approach on the recording to keep it easy to listen to.

"Huli Huli Pt. 1" begins with some ambient effects: air blown thrown a horn, a faint skittering and rattling. As the group builds into a louder, more solid form, the instruments creating these ambiences reveal themselves. Eventually, we are locked into a sustained cymbal roll on various cymbals, for an effect like a billowing, undulating static.

"Huli Huli Pt. 2" is perhaps the most tuneful piece on the album, a relaxed mid-tempo fusion piece not unlike something John Zorn's Masada might create. Indeed, I could picture this album coming out on Zorn's Tzadik label. For this track, the guitar harmonizes with something that sounds like a harmonium (the credits list only "organ"), initially in unison before diverging into separate haunting solos. In the latter half, we get some intense shredding from the guitarist.

The ten minute "Al Sal3awa" is one of the most curious pieces yet, an electronically processed flute performance in which the solo is harmonized with a lower octave version of itself, sounding truly serene and celestial, like something from an Iasos album. Of course, this is only an intro of sorts, and the rhythmic raga to follow is a dazzling melodic display from the oud. I was quite surprised when the final minutes were lacerated by a gnarled mass of digital electronic frequencies, dissonant and sharp, obliterating all previous momentum with crushing gravity. The piece finally crumbles into lurches, spasms and twitches from the drummer, and I am left contemplating the concept of negative space.

I've never quite heard a group fully combine the worlds of Arabic classical music and Western jazz/rock. Hearing Karkhana's efforts here makes it clear how rich an untapped vein it is. Their creation Al Azraqayn is fiercely passionate, carefully balanced and calculated for the perfect balance of elements. Though it draws from 'free jazz', it is hardly chaotic; rather, distinctly tuneful and never pointless. It is a long album, but never wastes your time. Rather, each LP side represents a new approach. Drop by here to find out more