Each of Anouar Brahem’s albums, going back more than 30 years now, has a different feel, a different vibe. Although the Tunisian oud master and composer’s music is centered on Arabic folk music and classical maqams, since the early 1990s when he signed with ECM he has collaborated with many jazz musicians, whose variety of instruments create unique sonic landscapes. Clarinet and percussion, piano and accordion, bass clarinet and darbouka, all interact with his warm and expressive oud in their own ways. Since first becoming aware of Brahem with 2017’s Blue Maqams I’ve delved into his back catalog over many pleasurable hours.
On has latest After The Last Sky Anouar Brahem takes yet another direction. Returning from the Blue Maqams sessions are pianist Django Bates and bassist Dave Holland, both of whom perform with Brahem in a highly sympathetic manner. New to the ensemble is the German cellist Anja Lechner, whose presence adds a distinct European classical vibe to the proceedings.
The album as a whole has a somber feel, due to the influence of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war as these works were being composed and recorded. The title is the same as that of Edward Said’s influential book, a searing examination of Palestinian identity; the penultimate track is a haunting duet between Bates and Lechner entitled “Edward Said’s Meditation”; and the opening track “Remembering Hind” is a similar duet in memory of a victim of the Gaza war. The jazz-adjacent title track and its following piece “Endless Wandering” delve into similar emotional spaces. “Never Forget” has an especially elegiac tone, featuring more than one passage of Brahem’s searching improvisations and opening and closing sections in which both the arco bass and cello play the melody in unison with the oud while tender piano notes fall like tears.
That’s possibly just my interpretation, but the composer invites me to do just that, as he is quoted in Adam Shatz’s liner notes: “Music, and particularly instrumental music, is by nature an abstract language that does not convey explicit ideas. It is aimed more at emotions, sensations, and how it’s perceived varies from one person to another. What may evoke sadness for one person may arose nostalgia for another… I invite listeners to project their own emotions, memories or imaginations, without trying to ‘direct’ them.”
There are many uplifting performances and moments, though. A duet between Brahem and Holland, “The Eternal Olive Tree” is a celebration of survival and resilience, and also of the musical bond between these two players. And “Dancing Under The Meteorite” involves the entire quartet, the cello and oud romping in unison through the main melody, then cello, oud and piano, with Brahem inserting a long and sparkling improv section that’s among my favorites across his many albums. Likewise he plays another lengthy improvisation on the bittersweet “The Sweet Oranges Of Jaffa,” as does Lechner, whose training is classical but who has long experience in improvised music. The album’s closing piece finds Bates and Lechner taking on “Vague,” one of Anouar Brahem’s most beloved melodies.
The classical vibe brought to the project by Lechner’s cello at first took me aback, but I’ve warmed to the album with repeated listening. The impeccable recording and production by Manfred Eicher at ECM’s beautiful recoding space in Lugano, Switzerland, certainly add to its aura of somber majesty.
(ECM, 2025)
