Electric Avenue: Blending Arabic Music with Electronica

To be blunt, many of the first attempts at blending Arab music and electronica were painful.  Tapes sold in bus station stalls across the region combined the most generic of techno beats with melodies so catchy they could haunt you for the entirety of your bus journey. Classics included techno versions of the theme from Lawrence of Arabia or Umm Kulthum’s Alf Leila wa Leila. Similarly, the sonic orientalism of the Buddha Bar series seemed to be just as popular with the jet-set populations of the Middle East as they were in Europe. Chillout Arabia mixes and techo-bellydance songs, both of which often used Indian sitars, dominated the electronic music landscape. Even today, YouTube is littered with songs of “Arabic” chillout music accompanied by pictures of the Pyramids, deserts, the Taj Mahal and Mayan calendars. As with many things, underground scenes were concocting very different formulations, often using the same source material.


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