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15 Mar 2006
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Mantra Recordings are delighted to release 'The Best Of Natacha Atlas' on Monday 23rd May 2005. It is a dazzling retrospective on the five solo albums so far recorded by one of the very few singers to effectively unite the powers and languages of the popular musics of the Middle East and Europe. Click here for more information.
The title Best Of… perhaps implies that if you listen to this compilation you can skip the rest, but that's very much not the case. Each of her albums, all still available, has its own character and is packed with tracks that are as innovative, unusual, quirky and beautiful now as ever. This one isn't a digest; seven of the sixteen tracks are exactly as on the albums, but the other nine consist of new mixes or edits, some with new vocals, some reworkings very unlike the originals, and one song not on any of the existing CDs. And there's an extra unlisted live track.
01 Leysh Nat'Arak (New Version)
02 Mon Amie La Rose
03 Eye Of The Duck
04 Ezzay
05 Fakrenha
06 Mistaneek (2005 Edit)
07 Leysh Nat'Arak (TJ Rehmi Remix)
08 You Only Live Twice
09 Yalla Chant (2005 Edit)
10 Fun Does Not Exist (New Mix)
11 I Put A Spell On You
12 (It's A Man's Man's) Man's World
13 Amulet (2005 Edit)
14 Kidda
15 Leysh Nat'arak (2005 Dub Mix)
16 Le Printemps
17 Moustahil (live)
These are Natacha's own choices and changes. "I decided to re-record a few tracks that I felt needed an overhaul or bringing up to date; that way the album has something new as well as old."
First guesting with Transglobal Underground in 1991, in 1993 she became a member of the core quartet, as lead singer and belly-dancer (the latter not some kind of limp tourist-pleasing wiggle but the real raq sharki). A couple of years later, it was the band’s Tim Whelan, Hamid ManTu and Nick Page (a.k.a. Count Dubulah, now of Temple of Sound) who encouraged and helped her to make her first solo album, Diaspora. Produced and largely co-written with Natacha by Tim, Hamid and Nick, it combined the dubby, beat-driven global dance approach of Transglobal with the more traditional work of Arabic musicians such as Tunisian singer-songwriter Walid Rouissi and Natacha's uncle, Egyptian composer and oud-master Essam Rashad. The critically acclaimed result naturally, intelligently and excitingly combined Middle Eastern and Western musics in a way never heard before; Middle Eastern producers and musicians didn't know how to make music that retained their character but would reach a western audience, while Western producers until then hadn't sufficiently understood and empathised with the ways of Middle Eastern music.
The song not on any of the albums is a surprising rendition of John Barry and Leslie Bricusse's James Bond theme You Only Live Twice, produced and arranged in the Atlas version by today's feted inheritor of Barry's Bond-composer mantle, David Arnold, with whom she's worked on the soundtracks of Stargate, The World Is Not Enough and Die Another Day.
Keep the CD running after the last track, and by way of a coda you'll hear an example of just what an impressive live performer Natacha Atlas is: a version recorded live in France of Moustahil, a song that originally appeared on Halim.
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19 May 2005
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Natacha will play a special live show at London's Union Chapel in Islington on Wednesday 4th June - 7.30pm, with Ali Slimani. All tickets are £17.50 and are available now on 0871 220 0260 or from www.wayahead.com. This promises to be a great night!
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21 May 2003
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Natacha is returning with a new album and a new sound. Due for release in the UK on 19th May the appropriately titled 'Something Dangerous' has been produced by (amoungst others) Sugababes producer Brian Higgins and features a guest appearance by Sinead O'Connor. There's also a So Solid Crew remix currently doing the rounds in the clubs.
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14 Mar 2003
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We've added some new audio tracks to the King Of Woolworths and Natacha Atlas pages.
To have a listen click on the links below:
King Of Woolworths
Natacha Atlas
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12 Mar 2003
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Natacha Atlas will be playing live on Wednesday 20th November at Cargo in London - at an evening of world beat mash-up presented by Splash Management, in association with ComoNo, Musicians Incorporated & Wagram Music. Here's the details: TEMPLE OF SOUND - Wednesday 20th November (19.30 - 01.00 hrs). At: Cargo, 83 Rivington St, London EC2. Furhter info from: 020 7739 3440. Tickets: £10.00 or £7.50 adv - www.ticketweb.co.uk
Temple of Sound features:
LIVE: Natacha Atlas & Mykael Riley
(Steel Pulse Reggae Philharmonic Orchestra)
DJ: Martin Morales (Stimulus / Outcaste)
Pathaan (Stoned Asia Music / Orchestral World Groove)
DK (High Chai NYC)
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15 Nov 2002
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Foretold In The Language Of Dreams - The Natacha Atlas & Marc Eagleton Project is released today! The calm, shimmering heat-haze of this new album might appear a radical change of direction for Natacha. But the heart of Arabic music is reflective, philosophical and poetic, and Foretold in the Language of Dreams is a creature of that quiet eye.
Much of the lyrical content of Foretold in the Language of Dreams, and of the occasional spoken interjections, derives from Sufi sayings and from resonant phrases in Meetings with Remarkable Men, the book by Gurdjieff dealing with his quest for knowledge and wisdom, which was made into a film in the 1970s by director Peter Brook. "I was so struck by these phrases and imagery that I wanted a way to keep them with me for ever, wherever I go.". There are other literary influences too, including another story of one man's journey to discovery, Brazilian writer Paolo Coelho's The Alchemist. But, as is clear from some of the other spoken interjections and atmospherics, the album might be partly a mnemonic for Natacha herself but is no self-serious conceptual epic for the listener: "I'm not taking myself too
seriously, or setting myself up as a guru trying to teach anybody anything". The album, made in Britain, Greece and Rome, is a stream of vivid or glimpsed, hazy images, created by Atlas, her co-producer Marc Eagleton (who motivated her into going ahead with the project) and a varying cast of musicians including brilliant young Syrian qanun player Abdullah Chhadeh, Andrew Cronshaw on zither, fujara and ba-wu,
violinists Salim Benouni and Yiorgos Maglaras, Larry Whelan on clarinet, guitarist Adam Blake, sitarist Shima Muckerjee, two tracks made in collaboration with Greek band Avaton, and assorted strings, keyboards, "computer malarkey" and "strange other" from Luca Proietti, Kad, and longtime ally from Transglobal Underground, Hamid Mantu.
Natacha is currently in the studio with Andy Gray (Perfecto) and Mike Nielsson (Underworld) working on the follow up to Ayeshteni which will be released in 2003.
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19 Aug 2002
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