Against The Day

sam shalabi is a musician and composer who has been creating and playing music in montreal for the better part of 20 years. unconstrained by genre, sam's musical history spans rock, jazz, free music, punk, and most things in-between. a highly truncated list of his projects includes shalabi effect, detention, molasses, and nutsak, along with several releases under his own name courtesy alien8 recordings and squintfucker press. for the past five or so years shalabi has also been writing and arranging sprawling compositions for large ensembles, the most recurring of which is land of kush, modeled on classical orchestras from late nasser-era egypt. incorporating some 30 montreal players and vocalists, kush includes string, brass, woodwinds, guitar, and percussion sections, in addition to electronics and shalabi's oud. inspired by and named after the thomas pynchon's novel 'against the day', the music is broken into five sections, named for the book's chapters. the three primary movements are centred around solo vocalists (jason grimmer, molly sweeeney, radwan moumneh) who independently composed their own lyrics for the piece. in between vocal performances, shalabi gives the orchestra ample opportunity to strut its stuff between verses, including solos and long instrumental passages that display sam's unique balance of composition and 'expository' or improvisational instruction. 'against the day' is a complex, intense, but accessible hour of hybrid, genre-defying music. the marriage of middle-eastern, north african and western modes and influences yields a recording that evades categorization. constellation is proud to be releasing this new work by one of montreal's most challenging and prolific musical iconoclasts. the album was recorded and mixed by efrim menuck (a silver mt. zion, godspeed you! black emperor). for fans of: black star arkestrar, sun ra and asmz. the cd comes in cardstock package with metallic and fluorescent inks.