Bedouin Trax (2LP)

Lakker's restless explorer, Ian McDonnell a.k.a. Eomac, presents a mesmerising study of Islamic and Arabic drum breaks and string arrangements augmented with spacious electronic treatments in his 4th solo album, Bedouin Trax for Bedouin Records. Taking samples from a bouquet of Moroccan street sounds, Sufi ritual music and Baghdadi dabke, Eomac diffuses and enmeshes their integral, individual atmospheres and sacred geometries in an often haunting, curiously distanced consolidation of acoustic and electronic, east and west sensibilities that's respectful to the material yet faithful to his electro-techno roots. From a relative outsider's perspective, he's really nailed a vibe for us; offering ten tracks whittled down from 30, with particular highlights in the percussive suss of pieces such as the tumultuous, angular Entrance and the dabke-derived patterns of Same Heart, Same Breath, Same Life, Same Death and the Shackleton-esque Ritualwhilst his tone-based works make the source material sound uncannily close to Akira Rabelais' convolutions of medieval choral music and it all comes together perfectly in the ecstatic, guttural Incantation.