3NE

Niqolah Seeva seeks to push established boundaries and challenge our preconceptions; his first album presents itself as the clarion call that ushers in a new musical genre and, possibly, a new world order. On the surface, there is much that is original about this recording; Seeva has invented his own instrument, the Guitarabia, which is a hybrid between an oud and a guitar fretted to play quarter-tones. He has also devised an innovative way to write rock lyrics, so they look a little like confusingly transliterated Arabic. Judge for yourself whether ‘Hey girl that I miss, Hey sexy lady’ is any better for being written ‘Ya ga3l dat i miss,Ya seqsi ya lady.’

Once you strip away the novelty packaging, this is actually quite an ordinary, Oriental-rock fusion album, with a bit of jazz and heavy electro­production: unfavourable comparisons could be made to Steve Hillage. Niqolah Seeva is certainly a fine musician; it’s just puzzling as to why his ideas have got stuck in the dressing-up box.