The Hour Of Two Lights

09/19/2003 8:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
Ken Micallef

If you enjoy carousing outdoor markets in Jordan or riding in a New York City cab, The Hour Of Two Lights will sound like baba ganoush and hummus to your ears. Terry Hall of the Specials fame and Mushtaq, a middle-eastern hip hop musician formerly of world beating collective Fun-Da-Mental, join forces here and promptly disappear. What's left is the sound of hope, history, curiosity, and a clanging hip-hop beat. A mini-orchestra including a DJ, a Mongolian throat singer, an Algerian rapper, and multiple percussionists mash it up for this soundtrack to the coming falafel fry-up in the sky. Both artists sing-rap-chant in evocative music that, but for its bulbous beat, could be the accompaniment to a Bedouin wedding. Amid the prayerful smoky vocals and scratchy and bubbling instruments Hall and Mustaq conjure music that is intense in its hypnotic, devotional quality. Like Anne Dudley & Jaz Coleman's 1991 album, Songs From The Victorious City, The Hour Of Two Lights is an inspired recording that imagines a world where music and culture override ideology and politics. Grab a hookah and enjoy.