ZIAD RAHBANI Houdou Nisbi (Sealed 2022 French issue of the 1985 release (originally only on cassette!) - now a 12-track LP. From the first moment you put on Ziad Rahbani’s Houdou Nisbi, you feel an instant pull that just floors you. Playwright, actor, pianist, composer, and activist, Ziad called the music on this album “oriental jazz” but that itself is a gross oversimplification. What you hear on Houdou Nisbi are all sorts of styles touched by the movement of Lebanon’s own cultural/historical place, all swerving into a meditation of that unique time. One song might veer into Gallic chanson, while another takes the ideas of spiritual jazz — only to turn and create something that shows the influence of samba and MPB (all music heard on terrestrial radio or brought from vacationing tourists), but, somehow, end up closing on something that sounds distinctly Lebanese and distinctly Ziad’s own. The vinyl is in BRAND NEW condition housed in the picture sleeve which remains sealed within its custom-stickered original shrinkwrap WWSLP50).