Whispers
1 Mourn
2 Paint Me A Heart
3 Rebellion
4 Lonely Through The Crowd
5 Holy Books
Written & Produced by Ala Ghawas
Whisperers:
Caity Cook on Vocals
Mohammed Haddad on Oud
Esam Hammad on Acoustic Guitars
Tariq Kamal on Cello
Ala Ghawas on Electric Piano, Acoustic Guitars, Keys, Accordion, Drum Programming & Vocals
Release Date: 27th December 2008
One Response to “Whispers”
Victor Alfredo December 29, 2008
Whispers by Ala Ghawas:
The tortured spirit behind the smiling face
If you’ve ever met Ala Ghawas, you’d feel his charming character in no time, positive, colorful, talented, daydreamer, with a big smile that never leaves his face, he smiles at everybody, friends and strangers, a singer/songwriter with his smile could only come up with Jason Mraz kind of tunes, happy, cheerful and upbeat. But when you actually hear his songs, you’d begin to challenge the truthfulness of his smile and judge him differently. Because in his songs, he’s gloomy, confused, constantly searching, broken and somehow tortured!
I first thought it was just a phase that he was going through when I heard his masterpiece “replica” or his romantic epics “redheaded woman” & “SugarBee” during the “hums” sessions, but after releasing the second chapter (EP) of his story “whispers”, Ghawas revealed himself wide-open to prove to me that he has been disguised behind his smile, he’s deeper and more mysterious than I thought. Only his songs can set him free from his fake skin, because when he sings, he’s nude!
While “hums” (his first EP released in 2007) was more about him growing up, where Ghawas had emphasized on the transition between teenage and adulthood with lots of references to his parents, childhood, early heartbreaks and all the other things that shaped his character. “Whispers” is about breaking up, and not just the romantic way because it’s about breaking up all the way, a disaster, it’s about disintegrating his beliefs, values, love, hopes and dreams and reassemble all that all over again as if he’s convinced that there’s no use of fixing the wounds of his. And I give credit to the breathtaking album artwork (which he produced himself) that sort of guided me to come up with these conclusions, Ala left bits and pieces of the story in those puzzling visuals to complement the message he’s trying to convey in his music. So if you don’t have the album artwork then you’re missing out!
Moreover, he proved once again that his songs are driven by lyrics that amaze me, I got thrilled every time I remember that this kid was born and raised in Bahrain and never got proper English-based education. He’s a poet to me more than a songwriter. His words can make up a screenplay, full of images and clever twists.
The EP launches with a stunning funeral “Mourn”, confirming his hopelessness to get over a true love that he grew up holding on to and then regretting the passion he misplaced in this love, Ghawas established a gorgeous trio conversation between his acoustic guitar, piano and the soothing Arabian Cello notes from Tariq Kamal all the way, and then ended the track with a dramatic/surprising wail from singer Caity Cook.
In “Paint me a heart“, he wrote an instant classic love tune about a one-sided love story between him and a lady painter, a very distinctive approach of telling a love tale where it has the most painful line ever, “paint me a heart for someone else to break”. The bluesy sound of Esam Hammad’s guitar made a great use of the interesting chords progression of the chorus and created a true hock.
In “Rebellion”, which I believe is the most important track in “whispers” and probably in Ghawas’ music career to date, portraits Ghawas’ struggle with cultural, social and religious beliefs “If God is with us, then who’s with them?” and how those beliefs came down to destroy his spirituality and transform his personal life to something he never wanted “The roots in the ground had poisoned my fortune” and probably contributed to the disaster he was referring to across the entire EP “I just wanted to keep a wife and a home, but they call me a thief and a liar”. And at the very end he closed the song with a profound question that strikes a nerve “what’s wrong with unity?” I bet this song could speak to a generation and represent it!
In “Lonely Through The Crowd”, Ghawas showed off his skills in music arrangements, the regular folk song starts with just one guitar and it progressed a little with improvised Oud touches from Mohammed Haddad, but then he transitioned the song smoothly to a different key along with a different riff altogether and he gradually exploded by an extraordinary middle eastern beat with harmonized screams and shout in the background saying “No-one knows my name, no-one knows I’m in pain”. The angry side of Ala was very clear in this song.
And at the end, he closed the album with a soft-mellow tune “Holy Books”, a tender call for peace, dreadfully confused and awfully sorrowful. Within the hidden tension in his voice, he makes you wonder and wonder, he induces you to try to solve his puzzle and maybe persuade you to even drown deep with him. In this romantic – unreligious – tune, Ala brought the holy books to the heart of his story, “we worship different holy books from the same God but it’s the same you and me, the busker and the refugee” and made them shine by his accusation “Why have you taken my SugarBee from me?” for taking away his romantic figure “SugarBee”. It could be a dull ending for this matured album, but I’m sure it’s the ending that Ala wanted anyway.
“Whispers” have certainly cleared up all the doubts about Ala Ghawas’ talent; he’s surely not the most popular or the most accomplished Bahraini musician, his independent musical soul would make his music less accessible to the public and he knows that. Nonetheless, I believe he at least has the potential to become the most innovative and most promising musician in the island.
Ala had announced early this year that he’s working on a trilogy of EPs, he started with “Hums” and “whispers” and right now he’s working on “screams”. And as a follower to Ghawas’ music career, I expected such a transition in the intensity of the music and topics in “screams” yet he somehow exposed some of that in “whispers” which makes my expectations for “screams” even harder to imagine.
But what I know is that his head is still filled up with unanswered questions and unreciprocated prayers with hunger for the truth, the unreached truth that – I guess – does the tricks to the rising Bahraini artist’s heart and made him smile to people, although I feel he never meant to do so!
|