It's not often that we think of popular music and the Old Testament in the same breath. Heck even the majority of today's gospel music looks to the New Testament for its inspiration. However, when you consider the source of the new release Song Of Songs on the Electrofone Records label, the Old Testament connection makes a lot of sense. Inbar Bakal was born in Israel and is a descendant of Yemenite Jews whose traditions have long included putting their belief to music.
Like all young Israelites Bakal did her years of national service, as part of an anti-aircraft battalion, before embarking on the career of her choice. While that choice was always destined to be music, (her grandfather, a famous kabbalist thought by some to be able to predict the future, told her when she was sixteen that she had a big star in the sky that said she was going to be a singer) it was only after she gave up a career in the armed forces and moved to Los Angeles that it came to fruition. It was the same grandfather who inspired Bakal's version of the traditional psalm that is her release's title track, Song Of Songs. For while many consider the sensuality of that particular psalm to be an allegory for the love between man and God, her grandfather believed it was about love from a woman, because it is truly divine.
That should give you a clue to the fact that although this disc might look to the Old Testament and traditional Jewish music and culture for its inspiration, its not what you would call religious music. Bakal is very careful to enunciate that while she takes great pride in her Yemenite heritage and has a very traditional sense of her culture, she is not especially religious. Nor, at least judging by her approach to the music on Song Of Songs, is she so wedded to her traditions that she's unwilling to tamper and experiment with the music using the technology available today.
While listening to the disc you'll also notice she's done a little more than just add a few technical advances. She's put together a band that's comfortable with the instruments and musical styles of a great many different cultures through-out the Middle East and the Mediterranean. This means that intermingled with the sound of instruments like the oud which is native to the region, you'll also hear the strains of a bouzouki and piano mixed in. Of course the most obvious additions are those that were added in the production room: electronic sounds and rhythms.
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