Idan Raichel: Mi'Ma'amakim

I've got Tali to thank for introducing me to The Idan Raichel Project. Idan Raichel is an Israeli keyboardist and vocalist who works with many other artists on his "project," mixing Middle Eastern, Ethiopian, and other styles of music.

I love the sound of the whole album, but my favorite track just happens (surprise!) to be in waltz time, at a zippy 180 bpm: Mi'Ma'amakim (Out of the Depths). (Download from Amazon, eMusic, or iTunes; hear a sample; see a video). It has gorgeous Hebrew lyrics, interspersed with parts of an Ethiopian song called Nanu Nanu Ney (for which I'm unfortunately unable to find lyrics or translation).

Of course, at nearly 6 minutes long, it needs a bit of editing so you don't die dancing to it. After (regretfully) hacking it up a bit, I got it down to about 3:30. I removed a duplicate verse and associated chorus, one of the three consecutive choruses at the end, some of the bridge, and some of the intro. The cuts were trickier than I expected: while the song seems to have a pretty consistent sound, the background vocals and instrumentation are actually changing enough to make it easy to introduce discontinuities if you're not careful. Anyway, I got Bob to play it at Faster Polka this week and it worked pretty well. The lyrics on the verses anticipate the beat a lot, so you have to be careful to follow the bass and percussion there, but overall it's good, and fun practice for fast waltzing.

Idan Raichel's Wikipedia page says there's actually a whole album titled "Mi'Ma'amakim," but I haven't been able to track down any other info about it.

An excerpt from the translation of the lyrics:
Who is it that calls to you tonight, listen
Who sings aloud under your window
Who stakes his soul just for you to be happy
Who'll lend his hand to build you a home
Who'll lay his life down under your footsteps
Who like the earth at your feet shall live on
Who'll love you better than all of your lovers
Who'll save you from the rage of the storm
Out of the depths