NO blues is a unique project which explores the connection between two musical worlds: americana and arabic music. Compare it to a cup of warm Americana-tea with a particular Arabic blend. Take a sip and you'll know exactly what we mean: 100% pure blend ARABICANA. For this project by Productiehuis Oost-Nederland (ON), Ad van Meurs, Haytham Safia and Anne-Maarten van Heuvelen were invited; their assignment was to investigate a possible combination of folk blues and traditional Arabic music in a three-day session. Both folk-blues and the Arabic taqsim (the improvised interplay without a fixed rhythm) are exceptionally suited for storytelling; the former in a somewhat rawer way, the latter mostly lyrical and melodic. In the same way as Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie documented their era in the early 20th century with their songs, the instrumentalist is the torchbearer of a centuries-old tradition in the virtually unwritten Arabic music culture. Traditional Arabic music differs from other music cultures in the way in which the music scale is subdivided. Thus the music can adopt forms that are nearly impossible in the western octave system. In the NO blues sessions, the musicians soon succeeded in establishing a singular integration of folk-blues and Arabic music. A cross-breeding of Americana and Arabic music, we call Arabicana. The sessions were concluded in 2004 and in 2005 the HT studio in Gemert was visited in order to record the first album: "Farewell Shalabiye" (rounder records RRECD10) under the supervision of Ankie Keultjes folowed by Ya Dunya (2007) and Lumen (2008).
