Kazim al Saher | La Ya Sadiki

Grab this ridiculously fabulous example of early 1990s Arabic art song here.

Watch a two-minute excerpt from a rare live performance of the title song:

One of the best things about moving is unpacking. Because I've just moved from a relatively large apartment to a fairly small one, I'm having to (a) unpack slowly and (b) make a lot of tough decisions about what stays and what, soon, will have to go. This has been good for me because, if I'm going to be perfectly honest with you, there are a lot of CDs here that I haven't yet really listened to. Tonight's offering is one of them. Had I listened to it earlier, I would have posted it long ago.

I don't even know how to describe this album, which consists of two songs, the 47-minute-long "La Ya Sadiki" ("Babel") and the 4-minute "Ya Rayeh Lebnan." Kazim al Saher composes a lot -- perhaps all -- of his music, and it's entirely possible these two songs are his. If so, the man is a genius. Not that I didn't already think that about him. I did. But the title song of this 1993 album is as mind-blowingly intricate as it is expressive -- and if you know al Saher's music, you know you can pretty much always count on the latter.

I've got a bit of news to share with you all, but I'm going to save it for later. Right now, a dozen-plus boxes are calling me, waiting to be unpacked, their contents sorted, their fates decided upon.