Spacebomb
BEDOUINE - s/t LP
$33.95
Highly recommended.
Strangeworld imported the debut by LA-based, Syrian-born Azniv Korkejian last year and it has sat in the racks, mostly unknown until now, as she is playing Womadelaide and Universal issued the CD locally. Duly impressed by her vocal performance and the beautiful arrangements within.
Bedouine is singing, like rain down a granite ruin, sweet as jasmine in the summer darkness, lilting crystal movements, precise and sure, the kind of voice that forms civilizations. Bedouine has a story to match the name, Azniv Korkejian, born in Syria to Armenian parents, spent her childhood in Saudi Arabia, and moved to America when her family won the Green Card lottery. Living at various times in Boston, Houston, Lexington, Austin, and Savannah, she found a community of musicians in Los Angeles that feels like home. One day she walked into Gus Seyffert’s studio to inquire about getting a reel-to-reel tape machine, something analogue and portable to record herself in small, quiet places. On a whim, he asked if she would play a song right then, so she stepped into the room and cut ‘Solitary Daughter’ (later added to FBi & Double J in July) in a first take, and they were off on a three year collaboration. Bedouine’s voice is at the centre, a serene narrator, restless or still, taking deep pleasure in moments of trust and recognition, close observations or oblique truths, exploring the deep complications of displacement. Her debut collects two coasts, combining L.A. studio magic and Richmond’s Spacebomb Records sound in a rich new world of style and song.
Strangeworld imported the debut by LA-based, Syrian-born Azniv Korkejian last year and it has sat in the racks, mostly unknown until now, as she is playing Womadelaide and Universal issued the CD locally. Duly impressed by her vocal performance and the beautiful arrangements within.
Bedouine is singing, like rain down a granite ruin, sweet as jasmine in the summer darkness, lilting crystal movements, precise and sure, the kind of voice that forms civilizations. Bedouine has a story to match the name, Azniv Korkejian, born in Syria to Armenian parents, spent her childhood in Saudi Arabia, and moved to America when her family won the Green Card lottery. Living at various times in Boston, Houston, Lexington, Austin, and Savannah, she found a community of musicians in Los Angeles that feels like home. One day she walked into Gus Seyffert’s studio to inquire about getting a reel-to-reel tape machine, something analogue and portable to record herself in small, quiet places. On a whim, he asked if she would play a song right then, so she stepped into the room and cut ‘Solitary Daughter’ (later added to FBi & Double J in July) in a first take, and they were off on a three year collaboration. Bedouine’s voice is at the centre, a serene narrator, restless or still, taking deep pleasure in moments of trust and recognition, close observations or oblique truths, exploring the deep complications of displacement. Her debut collects two coasts, combining L.A. studio magic and Richmond’s Spacebomb Records sound in a rich new world of style and song.
