Nhaoul’

For 20 years, from 1980, Kamilya Jubran was the voice of Sabreen, a Palestinian group known for their songs of resistance. More recently, exiled in Paris, Jubran has been experimenting with a much more raw, personal style. That’s the first surprising thing about this album – compared to the usual voices of Arabic pop, her voice is almost shockingly unvarnished and undefended.

Nhaoul means ‘loom’ and Jubran’s voice and, at times jazzy, oud playing are woven with the expressive bass playing of Sarah Murcia, who has mastered the art of Arabic quarter-tones. The other occasional colours, like cello and violin, give a feeling of a chamber Arabic group, unlike anything you have quite heard before. Jubran, with Murcia as her artistic cohort, gives the impression of being a loner, a one-off talent like Björk who has gone her own way, burning all bridges in the process. As such, she is something of a heroine to Palestinian feminists. But there is no sloganeering here, nothing is rote and there are no simple solutions. Most of the lyrics are of everyday rather than political struggle. When she sings, in a version of a song by Sayed Darwish, ‘Light of my life, you taught me submission’, is this a Sufi line being delivered to Allah, or to a lover? Or both? Either way, it’s not the kind of sentiment that would likely adorn a Western feminist’s album.

The lyric of the most compelling track, ‘Kam, seems to derive from some bleak and desolate Bedouin poetry. That song alone is worth the price of the album. The last three tracks make up ‘Suite Nomade’ and have similar texts, but whereas the earlier pieces have a taut economy, the balance is shifted to Europe and the music becomes a little too self-consciously avant-garde. But still, this is a bold and worthwhile experiment that, in places, the duo triumphantly pull off.