Through an arched gateway into the medina, inside a labyrinth of alleyways lined with shops selling spices and perfumed oils, rare vinyl and handmade instruments, comes the sound of the blues. Ancient and current, funky and rhythmic, buoyed by Arabic lyrics, soaring vocals and bass-heavy grooves, it seems to pulse from the heart of the Maghreb.

This compilation of songs is not meant as a historic reflection of popular music of the “Arab world.” It is a very personal selection of songs we grew to like at Habibi Funk. It is music that historically never existed as a unified musical genre. We think it’s important to make this distinction and to have the listener understand that the majority of the music on this compilation does not come from the highly famous names of the musical spectrum of North Africa and the Middle East.

Richard Danielpour has collaborated frequently with soprano Hila Plitmann, and this album features three recent works, two of which were written specifically for her. The song cycles heard here are sung in three languages central to the composer’s life. Songs of Love and Loss is in Farsi and sets the poetry of Rumi; Canti della natura, in Italian, takes sonnets attributed to Vivaldi in The Four Seasons; while Songs of My Father is set to the English poems of Danielpour’s father. Each cycle features differing instrumentation and reflects Danielpour’s long-admired compositional subtlety and refinement.

Live recording of the final show of SANAM's debut European 2023 tour at Cafe Oto, London, on Mais Um. Beirut's SANAM burst on the scene in 2023 with their debut album Aykathani Malakon, chosen by The Guardian as one of their 5-star albums from 2023: "Aykathani Malakon thoroughly embodies their originating influences, whipping up kosmische, post-punk, psych rock, free jazz and Levantine folklore into an alchemical tour de force delivered with a defiant, DIY disposition".

Born of multiple roots, Nomad ben Stones is a project inspired by the billions of dust particles that each of us sows along the way. From this wandering through the pursuit of life, we explore the possibilities of a music whose boundaries move with the times.

An absolutely legendary album from Lebanon by Issam Hajali’s group Ferkat Al Ard, “Oghneya” stands out as one of the great musical gems of the Arab world. A groundbreaking release from 1978 that represents the meeting point of Arab, jazz, folk and Brazilian styles with the talent of Ziad Rahbani, who did the albums arrangements. Filled with a variety of sounds and genres, from Baroque Pop to Psych-Folk to flashes of Bossa Nova, Tropicalia and MPB, “Oghneya” is like if Arthur Verocai took a trip to Beirut in the 70’s to record an album.

Daba means ‘Now’ in Moroccan. Giving this title to her third album is, for Oum, all about linking yesterday’s experience to the one determined by the present moment. In this ‘now’, the singer, having achieved a certain artistic maturity, is able to mix traditional Arab and Sahraoui elements with discreet borrowings from more contemporary aesthetics – soul, jazz and electronic trance.

A real star in Morocco, Oum has made a name for herself in Europe thanks to her songs that mix traditional North African styles with soul, jazz and electronic music. In March 2020, the tour of her third album Daba had to be suspended due to the outbreak of the global pandemic. To transcend this trying time, Oum has developed an alternative project with Cuban saxophonist M-Carlos.

In 2024, the singer and songwriter Oum celebrates her fifteen-year career with a live album recorded in Marrakech, which plunges back into the magic of her three flagship records, here revisited in a different light. This seventh album, named Dakchi, which means "those things," is the opportunity for this daring off-roader to allow herself a suspended moment for a temporary assessment, a return to her roots. Dakchi is the first best-of live album, in which Oum brings together around ten titles from her repertoire woven throughout three albums with identities as singular as they are filled with a common sap: "Soul of Morocco" (2013), "Zarabi" (2015), and "Daba" (2019).

Wewantsounds is delighted to release 'Sharayet el Disco' a selection of Egyptian 80s Disco and Boogie tracks curated by Egyptian DJ Disco Arabesquo from his vast collection of cassettes. Most tracks have never been released on any other format and are making their vinyl debut with this set. A journey through the funky sound of 80s Egypt, Sharayet El Disco (which can be translated by "Disco Cassettes") features Simone, Ammar El Sherei and more obscure names from Cairo‘s cassette culture. The audio has been remastered for vinyl by David Hachour at Colorsound Studio in Paris and features artwork by young Egyptian graphic designer Heba Tarek.

“The Armenian National Musical Treasury” project started with choosing highly qualified specialists in the field of Armenian traditional music, selecting soloists of Armenian folk songs, and forming the male chorus “Zark”, consisting of 10 singers. Vocal and instrumental compositions: folk, spiritual, ashug, were recorded. In parallel to recording, processes began directed to the creation of armenianmusic.am online music portal, in which all the recordings were placed.

“The Armenian National Musical Treasury” project started with choosing highly qualified specialists in the field of Armenian traditional music, selecting soloists of Armenian folk songs, and forming the male chorus “Zark”, consisting of 10 singers. Vocal and instrumental compositions: folk, spiritual, ashug, were recorded. In parallel to recording, processes began directed to the creation of armenianmusic.am online music portal, in which all the recordings were placed.

If you were to ask us for a defining Habibi Funk track, there are a few that come to mind: from Fadoul’s “Sid Redad,“ Dalton’s “Soul Brother“ to Ahmed Malek’s “Omar Gatlato.“ However, none are as widely connected with us at this point as Hamid Al Shaeri’s “Ayonha.“ We heard the track for the first time when we were working on selecting tracks for your first compilation and we instantly loved it. We obviously had heard of Hamid El Shaeri’s music before, but only material from his Al Jeel phase when he was already the full-blown superstar he is now. Listening to his releases from the early 1980’s opened a whole new door for us. At the time, Hamid had just left Libya to pursue his career in Egypt via a detour in London, where he recorded his first album.

Sahrawi singer-songwriter activist Aziza Brahim’s fifth album Mawja (Wave in Hassaniya Arabic) is fashioned from a simple but powerful foundational palette: Saharan and Iberian percussion entwining with stately guitars and warm, enveloping bass.

Beginning in the 1680s, with a considerable delay when considered in relation to the principal theatrical venues of the Italian Peninsula, the capital of Savoy finally gave up its resistance, surrendered to the opera, and in 1740 went so far as to provide itself with a theater, the Teatro Regio, that was worthy of immortalization in the pages of the Encyclopédie and obtained the status of a magnet for illustrious travelers and visitors. During the mid-1760s Joseph-Jérôme de Lalande regarded it as »the most studied, the best composed, the most complete that we see in Italy…the most richly and nobly decorated that there is in the modern genre.« Some years later it seemed to Charles Burney to be »very large and elegant« and worthy of being regarded among the most beautiful in Europe.