Bellylicious

A compilation of Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Indian flavors of catchy dance music with a bellydance theme, Bellylicious is an ambitious album. Well-known bands such as The Dhol Foundation, Thievery Corporation, The R.E.G. Project, Spiritual Brothers, and Saed Mrad lead the integration of Arab and traditional middle-eastern/Indians melodies, rhythms, and textures into a modern electronic breakbeat. Unfortunately, a few of the songs are so amped up with the driving bass that they nearly end up losing their exotic flavor. Overall catchy with great production values.

Track 1, Seeking advice…: Starts with plain percussion; then sitar riffs, distorted chanting/wailing, and sax join in for good measure. Strong techno beat. Tempo and tension rise as the track progresses.

**Track 2, Inta Omri: Shakers, followed by drumming on different types of surfaces. Disco-ish beat. Very Middle eastern sound. Nice!

Track 3, Sawah: Traditional middle eastern percussion, drowned out by annoyingly thumpy beat last heard on the dance floors of the 90s.

Track 4, Kariat: Similar to #3.

Track 5, Peace: Raw, almost tribal beat. Tempo reduces with the riffs of a stringed instrument at 1:00, then picks up again at 2:00.

Track 6, Roots beat: Think intro to a James Bond flick. Female vox going “papapa” to dramatic, mysterious music. Cheesy in a cool sort of way. Very heavy percussion.

Track 7, Higher ground: Techno beats, intermittent male wailing in the background.

**Track 9, Reflex: Dripping water and clanking of cymbals. Later, flute and sax join in.

Track 10, Chicky: Middle eastern rhythm with some unimpressive rapping thrown in.

Track 11, Turkish delight: Traditional pipes + drums with campy female vox in English (not to mention moaning and grunting). This one for the strip clubs.

**Track 12, Colors of Panjab: Begins with a beautiful flute refrain plus the tinkering of distant temple bells. Traditional bhangra beats starting at 1:30. Probably the most authentic track on this album (and its not even belly dancing, really).

Track 13, Lagian: More modern sounding bhangra (fused with middle eastern percussion and techno beats). Tame male vox.

**Track 14, Ja vidi: Starts with riffs from some sort of Persian stringed instrument. Great trance/techno music.

Track 15, Indra: Traditional Indian female vox plus percussion starting at 2:00.