Cairo -- القاهرة (pronounced: al-Qahirah), literally "The Victorious"

May 12, 2019 10:32 PM

This interview with Anne Dudley, from Art Of Noise, is about her 1991 album with Jaz Coleman (Killing Joke), and a bunch of musicians in Cairo -- Songs From The Victorious City. Middle-eastern influenced instrumental music shaped by AON sensibilities but played live. It's brilliant! Side A: The Awakening, Endless Festival, Minarets And Memories [video], Force And Fire, Habebe

Side B: Ziggarats of Cinnamon, Hannah, The Conqueror, A Survivor's Tale, In A Timeless Place

posted by hippybear (14 comments total)

Underrated, underappreciated, brilliant. She could write an orchestral arrangement of 'Who Let The Dogs Out?' that would sound both entirely proper within its genre and yet sound like Mozart himself wrote it. More Dudley, please!
posted by zaixfeep at 12:26 AM on May 13, 2019 [3 favorites]

Every once in a while I throw "Habebe" into a playlist for the show I do for a local public radio station and it's generally good for provoking a call to the air room to ask "what is that you're playing?"

You've reminded me that I needed to replace the CD -- my copy of the LP disappeared years ago and all I had left was the "Ziggurats of Cinnamon" single. Amazon marketplace seems to have a bunch of them, which is handy, since it's been out of print for years.
posted by Nerd of the North at 12:38 AM on May 13, 2019

Isn't this cultural appropriation?
posted by Hal Mumkin at 2:30 AM on May 13, 2019

That's an interesting question. The composers wrote music in a certain style and then went to the place where that style originated and worked with musicians from that place to record the music they wrote. Is that cultural appropriation? Would it have been more or less cultural appropriation if they'd recorded the same music using musicians in the UK? Would it have been more or less cultural appropriation if they'd recorded music using UK musicians but written by someone from Cairo?

I think it's more a case of appreciation of a style of music and working with those experienced in that style of music to create something that blends cultures. I'm sure opinions will differ about this, but I feel this is less problematic than other projects.
posted by hippybear at 4:45 AM on May 13, 2019 [9 favorites]

Thanks for sharing this, hippybear. I've been meaning to get more into Anne Dudley's solo works as well as Art of Noise. It looks like she's mainly gone over to soundtrack work?
posted by jzb at 5:25 AM on May 13, 2019

For me appropriation is marked by employing ideas, elements, techniques, etc. created by a different group without trying to include members of the originating group in the process and without trying to bolster the originating group.

So, for example, if a you're a rock band that asks a blues musician to write a song with you and then maybe you have that performer open for you in concert or use your clout to get them better/more distribution, you aren't doing anything wrong. If you decide that you're just going to incorporate blues into your sound without so much as a thank you to anyone your appropriating in a very clear and bad way.

So, to start with, writing the music themselves without talking to anyone isn't a great look. Using Egyptian musicians is good and the fact that they let the musicians solo improvisationally is good (it shows that the composers see the musicians as talented and give the musicians some agency). I think a lot depends on how much they took correction from the musicians, too. If a musician said, "this sounds bad or weird" did the composers listen? If the recording sessions were also collaborative in that way, then this starts to seem like it's not really appropriation at all. It's a collaborative process. I don't know enough about music (or the composers) to know how likely that is.

But, sorry to muddy the waters a bit more, it does smack me a bit too much of orientalism. Especially the whole, let's record in Egypt to get an authentic vibe thing. I'm willing to grant that I'm just not attuned to the artistic sensibility, though. Maybe that's just more the same sort of thing that moves people to record in medieval castles and storied, old recording studios where someone they admire once recorder. IDK.
posted by oddman at 5:29 AM on May 13, 2019 [1 favorite]

She could write an orchestral arrangement of 'Who Let The Dogs Out?' that would sound both entirely proper within its genre and yet sound like Mozart himself wrote it.

That ain't hyperbole. Anne's work backing the World's Famous Supreme Team on Malcolm McLaren's Do Ya Like Scratchin' EP in 1983 created some of the most sublime moments from the early days of hip-hop. (Maximum Anne at 1:08.)

I say this with some trepidation, as once can certainly accuse Malcolm McLaren of cultural appropriation in countless different ways (especially from the Duck Rock era), but I don't think that has much to do with Anne's work. Anne's been involved with so many different styles and collaborators - usually in the background as a session musician or arranger - that she has the kind of career where "let's make an album in Cairo" isn't some sort of cynical appropriation, it's just part of the way she's explored different musical forms as a versatile and open-minded musician.
posted by eschatfische at 6:46 AM on May 13, 2019 [2 favorites]

For what it's worth I remember reading that Jaz studied music in Cairo before Killing Joke started. Not that that makes 'everything ok' ... but there is clearly a connection there, for him at least.
posted by cirhosis at 7:05 AM on May 13, 2019

At some point, it seems weird that Metafilter is dumping all over one of the very few popular female composers for working with Islamic musicians.

Appropriation is a real thing, but unless there are outcries from Egypt, this isn't it.
posted by I EAT TAPAS at 7:29 AM on May 13, 2019 [5 favorites]

for working with Islamic musicians

I haven't done the research, but I think it's best to think of her as working with musicians from Cairo. Their religion doesn't matter to the project, but their cultural/musical background does. Cairo isn't populated exclusively with Muslims. There is a strong background for a lot of religions in Cairo across many centuries.
posted by hippybear at 9:38 AM on May 13, 2019 [1 favorite]

For those who are concerned about the cultural appropriation angle, you might prefer to check out an album released more or less around the same time as Dudley & Coleman's (1990 vs. 1991..) -- Simon Shaheen's album introducing western audiences to the film music of Egyptian composer Mohamed Abdel Wahab.
posted by Nerd of the North at 10:28 AM on May 13, 2019

Ooh, this is actually the only thing I know by either one of them, I used to listen to it a lot when it came out but haven't heard it in many years.
posted by bongo_x at 2:10 AM on May 14, 2019

bongo_x: I truly deeply love Dudley's album Ancient And Modern, which might or might not be available in part or its entirety online. I bush up against some of her other stuff on occasion. This was a comment made in another thread that mentioned Dudley, and I think there might be more available than just the single tracks linked.
posted by hippybear at 7:07 AM on May 14, 2019 [1 favorite]

Aargh! Missed the link. "This was a comment made..."
posted by hippybear at 7:23 AM on May 14, 2019