Apollo You Sixteen

‘Progressive world music’ is how this Belgium-based 40-year-old autodidact describes his latest album, which fuses flamenco with folk, garage, classical and Middle Eastern music to deliver a contemporary soundscape that draws heavily on traditional references from all over the world, reflecting influences far beyond even his own Jordanian and Yugoslav heritage. The style of playing varies constantly to mirror the ever-shifting provenance of the music: urgent and fevered one moment, serene and cinematic the next, as on the ethereal, almost hymnal ‘About Intuition’. Flamenco guitar, Arabic oud (lute) and violin feature heavily throughout, in keeping with the Arabesque-Hispanic motif that runs just below the surface on most tracks, rising to prominence on ‘Al’ and ‘Bee Red’. Baggili quotes major classical composers as well as Deep Purple and Muse among his inspirational sources – the latter influence being revealed blatantly on ‘Exitmuse’, before he returns to more original output on the passionate Spanish title-track. ‘Kiss from Lion’ is the only disappointment, with its rather formulaic kind of melancholy, but it does not detract from an otherwise excellent and absorbing album that rewards repeated listening.