Rizan Said-King of Keyboards (2015)

Rizan Said-King of Keyboards (2015)

“Worry does not mean fear, but readiness for the confrontation.”

Bashar al-Assad

By: Ghost Writer

These days an uncomfortable thought keep running thru my mind? Was it wrong when dictators like Saddam Hussein in Iraq, or Muammar Gadhafi in Libya were toppled? After all, in a certain way, they kept middle east in order and without them extremist like the Islamic State have grown out of proportion in these countries, Egypt and Nigeria opted to came bad to authoritarian like regimes in order to maintain stability, and dictators like Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey and   Bashar Al Assad in Syria seem to be the only ones really fighting and containing the advance of these extremist groups.

Precisely from Syria came a couple of years ago the great Omar Souleyman, the undisputed king of Dabke a popular style of music in Syria that Omar performed in his very particular way and that achieved a huge amount of followers worldwide, me included; part of that big success was the formula created by Souleyman with his raspy and intense vocal delivery and another big part was created by his fellow collaborators, a poet who created on the spot rhymes for Souleyman, and lets bot forget the magic of Rizan Said, the man originally behind the keyboards and programming in Souleyman's band.

Lately that wild style that characterized early Souleyman records has been put aside for a more techno kind of approach, the use of others instruments had been added, perhaps in order to reinforce more the middle east feel and Rizan role in the band I guess, has been seen diminished, but let’s not forget that in the world if Dabke, Rizan is the King of Keyboard, and that might be the main reason that Rizan is going solo on this recording adventure.

King of Keyboard is an amazing adventure to the center of Syrian popular music, contrary to what any newcomer may think, Rizan music is wildly fast, abrasive, electronic and loud, his baroque style of playing take us in a snake like travel thru the burning sands of the middle east, Electric Mawwal I is immediately welcomed with its violin like intro keyboards and Razan elegant flair for the epic, while High Tension Zamer starts with chicken like noise  and  diving quickly into Dabke fast and bouncy rhythms that makes me think how much we miss Souleyman vocally, but Rizan music keeps the amazing level of intensity that we sorely miss in Souleyman recent records, The Impossible Arab Kurd is again pure popular electronica clashing against middle east historical music baggage, Rizan experimenting with it like a mad scientist keeping always the speed at red levels and then making a sudden almost demonical stop at the more club printed  When Vans Run Into Clubs, but I particularly dislike Cosmopolitan Hacha, where Rizan sounds really short of ideas and just going crazy on the keys with an almost fixes beat, but returning again to more creative heights on the autobiographical The Man Who Toured the World, with its brilliant keyboard lines taken definitely to the extreme, in the end, King of Keyboard is a joyful return to the wild days of crazy Dabke and I hope the melancholic trip makes it way to Souleyman mind's, and a new record returning to the roots might be on the work, in the meantime, King of Keyboards remind us of the intense character behind Souleyman's meteoric rise.