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On the strength of the three tracks included on Choubi Choubi!, there is a good case for reissuing Ja’afar Hassan’s early 1970s Iraqi psych-rock LP Let’s Sing Together in its entirety. Hammond-driven prog with guitar outtakes from “Paint It Black,” his version of pre-Saddam folk-rock represents one of the highlights of this fascinating compilation, sourced from cassettes and private collections. The rest of the CD is made up of some prime examples of Saddam-era choubi, the Iraqi folk-dance style characterized by whirling violin and keyboard melodies topped by a distinctive, improvised zanbour drum that skips over the underlying rhythm in unpredictable quadruple-time spurts, rattling like a Gatling gun. For sheer energy and inventiveness, this is hard to beat.
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