the debut of sir richard bishop and his freak of araby ensemble, a talented quartet of players getting deep into the middle eastern mystic. sir richard bishop presents an album featuring hand drums, percussion, bass, drums, electric guitars and a heavy dose of moroccan chanters, all of it captured with depth, detail and sympathy for the eternal enigma by engineer scott colburn. after recording a cover of ?ka?an azzaman?, written by elias rahbani, one of lebanon?s finest songwriters, something dawned on sir richard. half-lebanese by birth, he found himself suddenly possessed to really dig into middle eastern sounds. a pair of original melodies not fully developed at a prior recording session had the arabic inspiration, so these were reattacked and finished in short order. soon, sir richard?s head was flooded with some of the classic sounds spun for him by his grandfather back in his younger days, like farid al-atrache, oum kalthoum and fairuz, along with other personal favourites, such as the guitarists omar khorshid and mike hegazi. in addition to the studio improvisation ?taqasim for omar?, the whole of ?the freak of araby? is dedicated to these inspiring players. in addition to his soul-stirring electric guitar playing, sir richard grabbed a couple of moroccan chanters and blew the house down on ?blood-stained sands?, providing an epic finish to this journey to the centre of one-half of the family tree.