Brahem (above left); Klaus Gesing, Anouar Brahem, Björn Meyer, and Franҫois Couturier [group shot l-r]; and the cover of Souvenance

Already out in Germany, it’s a January general release in prospect for Souvenance, a double album recorded in Lugano featuring the Tunisian oud master Anouar Brahem with pianist Franҫois Couturier returning to the Brahem fold, joining bass clarinettist Klaus Gesing and bassist Björn Meyer plus the strings of the Svizzera Italiana orchestra conducted by Pietro Mianiti. 

It’s five years on from Brahem’s The Astounding Eyes of Rita a highly evocative work that ranked with some of Brahem’s best, only eclipsed perhaps in the eyes of many fans by the classic Thimar back in the 1990s. Since Rita the Arab spring has swept north Africa and beyond, and the album’s cover art makes overt the seismic change in the region with the depiction of a dramatic street scene. Brahem comments: “I don’t claim a direct link between my compositions and the events taking place in Tunisia but I have been deeply affected by them.”

Brahem is to play the National Concert Hall in Dublin on 11 April