SOUNDTRACK: A-WA-Tiny Desk Concert #8876 (September 3, 2019).
I knew of A-WA and had seen them in a South X Lullaby this year. But that song was performed quietly, with just a guitarist. This session is full band with all kinds of dancey accouterments.
Liron, Tair, and Tagel Haim [left to right] are behind my desk with a full band of keyboards, bass, guitar and drums, singing more forlorn tunes in their unique three-part harmony. Their songs mix Yemenite and Arabic traditions with splashes of reggae and hip-hop.
These songs also have the lyrics translated at the bottom of the screen. Since Bob says the songs are sad, I haven’t been reading too much, just enjoying the melodies [I’ll let Bob talk about the song in brackets]
The first song is “Habib Galbi” (“Love of My Heart”), [a heartbreaking song that went viral for A-WA in 2016].
I don’t know much of anything in the languages they are singing, but back in 1988 Israeli singer Ofra Haza released an album that I really liked and one of the great songs was “Galbi.” So here it is again and it means “mt heart.”
‘Habib Galbi” opens with Middle Eastern melodies played on a synth (by Noam Havkin)–it’s a cool combination of traditional and modern almost futuristic. It even has some electronic percussion (from Tal Cohen) and some great bass from Nitzan Eisenberg. I love that there’s an occasional “Woo!” and lots of hand claps. It is so dancey, how can it be heartbreaking?
A-WA have recently released a second album, Bayti Fi Rasi (in Yemenite it means My Home is in My Head). The record tells the story of their grandmother traveling from Yemen to Israel. The final two songs come from that recent album.
The second song “Al Asad” (“The Lion”) has the reggae feel in with the staccato guitar and a cool guitar solo from Yiftach Shachaf. It “is a metaphorical tale of facing down a lion in your path.”
Once again, their movements and tone belie the story, as they move so almost sensually to the music as they sing (in fairness, it’s hard not to).
The last song “Hana Mash Hu Al Yaman,” (“Here is Not Yemen”) features some amazing rolling of r’s as they sing–I’m thinking it’s the word for “wheat.” Once again, despite the music, this song
paints the struggles of coming to a new land, learning the language, finding work, a place to live and making it a home.
Although this song starts out more somber, as the song moves on it picks up a more danceable beat with more interesting synthy sounds.
I couldn’t help but be interested in the lyrics for this one with the way they sang “wheat” I had to find out what the rolled r word was. This led me to see “Land of wheat and barely, grape and olive / fig, pomegranate date and home.”
And then further on:
Where will I stake a home? (You have a tent for now)
Or at least a small shack (along with four other families)
And here I will raise a family (Don’t let them take your daughter)
I’ll find myself a job with an income (either in cleaning or working the earth)
And I will learn the language (Lose the accent)
With time I’ll feel like I belong (Here is not Yemen).
Dang, draw me in with fun music and beautiful voices and then wow me with powerful lyrics. Well done, A-WA.
[READ: September 3, 2019] Herbert’s Wormhole
We listened to this book on our summer road trip. When I saw that it was a novel “in cartoons,” I decided to check out the print to see if it was any different as a story.
The cartoons certainly add to it. The drawings are done in a very stylized way (by Rohitash Rao). The cartoons are indeed very cartoony but that befits a story about squid aliens who wear fake mustaches and toupees.
I’m glad I listened to the audio first because it was fun having the experience of hearing the Australian accents in my head while reading the text. I’m sure I could have imagined the accents myself, but since Jonathan Davis did such a good job, it was nice having them in place.
The other interesting thing is how much I evidently missed during the listening (if you’re driving you have to pay attention to the world around you as well). So the book version filled in some details that I clearly missed and a few things made a bit more sense.
The opening is fairly simple: Alex Filby is 11 years old and loves video games. He is just about to defeat all the aliens in Alien Slayer 2 which is pretty great,. Except he promised his parents that when he beat the game, he would stop playing video games for the summer and start playing outside. So when he destroys the final alien, his parents tell him that they have set up a play date with the weird kid next store: Herbert Slewg.
Herbert is an inventor and his house is full of all kinds of weird creations. But it’s all fine because Herbert has Alien Slayer 3D which is the best game in the history of ever! But then Alex sees that Herbert took the game and dismantled every component (including the virtual reality suits) for his own stupid inventions. Alex is crushed.
They wind up going to Alex’s yard where Alex flicks a switch on the suit and it generates a wormhole. He and Herbert are sucked through the wormhole and wind up (after some very funny misunderstandings) in their town of Merwinsville about 100 years in the future. And in the future we learn that aliens have been invisibly helping humanity throughout history. In 2050, the G’Daliens (hence the Australian accent) finally revealed themselves.
A lifelong bond was formed, despite the fact that the G’Dalians are disgusting-looking squid creatures (“as if there was a flavor of Jello called Scummy Sewer water flavor”) who, inexplicably are wearing toupees and fake mustaches.
The two boys are pretty thrilled to be in a future Merwinsville. There are no cars–only tubes–there are all kinds of technological marvels in the town. Some of them are weird–like the alien who puts a suction cup on a person’s head and is able to know everything about her. There’s also ATMs (Access-Transferable Memories) in which Hebert is able to fill his mind with lots of information about Merwinsville, but in which Alex loses a (very important) memory. But best of all, Andretti’s Pizza is still around–although it is rather different.
But they know they have to be stealthy. The only problem is that when they landed, they caused all kinds of havoc in the museum (where they learned the truth about the aliens). And the janitor of the museum. GOR-DON is super angry about the mess they have made of his displays. Turns out that he really hates humans and thinks they should all be wiped out. This has something to do with the fact that a human broke his heart. But regardless, he is now plotting a way to prove that these humans are distrustful and so, therefore, are all humans.
Alex and Herbert’s crazy video game silver suits attract attention, but they just say they are part of a team. The local kids ask if it’s an A.G. T-Ball team. And Alex, figuring T-Ball is pretty easy says he’s amazing at it. So the locals ask if Alex and Herbert can play on their team since some of their players are sick. Alex agrees.
The other thing about the suits is that it makes them very obvious (so GOR-DON can spy on them). The worst thing is that when Alex takes his suit off he reveals that he is wearing a shirt that his mom made that says “I heart slaying aliens.” When GOR-DOn sees that, he puts his plan into place.
Alex and Herbert make it back home. When Alex says they have to go back to play T-ball, that they promised their new friends Chicago and Salsalito. Herbert says no way. So Alex does the only thing he can think of. He asks his cool neighbor Sammi Clemenine to steal the suits and go through the wormhole with him.
Sammi is an over-scheduled girl who does everything imaginable –kickboxing, soccer, ballet–everything. Alex convinces her to have unstructured fun and she is willing. After a hilarious scene in which they steal the suits (Sammi’s skills are impressive), Alex and Sammi go through the wormhole.
Although Alex’s face is on all the electronic wanted posters, a quick hair change makes him safe. Also everyone is distracted because they are all going to the big A.G. T Ball game. Alex can’t figure out why everyone is so excited about a T ball game until he learns that A.G. stands for anti-gravity and that the game is a lot more dangerous than he thought. Sammi is upset because girls aren’t allowed to play–WHAT? What kind of future is that?
The game is pretty fun (with a bunch of surprises) and there’s some cool plays (and some more surprises), but of course GOR-DON shows up to ruin everything.
The only way they can be saved is if Herbert manages to come and save them. But he has other plans. He wants to go back through the wormhole with the last existing copy of Alien Slayer 3D and smash it right in front of Alex, the stupid dumbhead.
How on future earth will they escape?
I’m rather looking forward to book two.
I Just Read About That... 
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