The Orient Express | uk

Recorded by a Frenchman, a Belgian and an Iranian who’d wound up in New York’s East Village via extensive travels out East, this 1969 classic is arguably the finest fusion of traditional Middle Eastern music and psychedelia ever recorded. Featuring guitar and drums as well as oud, electric sitar, melodica, dumbek and minitar, it’s a hypnotic, compelling blast from start to finish. As the original sleevenotes state: ‘Like the train whose name they bear, the Orient Express travels easily from West to East and back again, maintaining their individuality and integrity all the way.’

Guy Duris was born on the Left Bank, raised in heady French sunshine, and matured in the halls of European culture. A modern minstrel, he wandered and sang his songs, and began a romance with the ancient Arabic guitar, the oud. Journeying eastward, his music turned to the East. In Iran, he met Farshid Golesorkhi, the scion of a respected Persian family. Farshid, decorated by the Shah of Iran for his drumming, felt that Eastern rhythms could be applied to Western music. He found an eager co-experimenter in Guy.

Together they travelled – Guy with his guitar and oud, Farshid with his dumbeck drums. Working their way Westward, they returned to Paris, where they met Bruno Giet, a Belgian pilot and guitarist. Radio Luxembourg’s progressive pop sound had shaped Bruno’s musical ideas, and he moved Guy and Farshid into rock. Soon the three members of The Orient Express undertook another voyage – to the United States. In New York’s East Village they solidified their music into the many-faceted sound you hear on this album.

The marriage between Eastern and Western musical forms could easily become a self-conscious hybrid, but The Orient Express has smoothly and honestly achieved the merger individually and as a group. Instead of mixing clichés of each form, they have deeply explored each music, and exposed the profound similarities between their cultures... at once creating a highly original music and a timeless one.

Like the train whose name they bear, The Orient Express travels easily from West to East and back again, maintaining their individuality and integrity all the way. .