Bedouine
Bedouine
Release Date: Jun 23, 2017
Genre(s): Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock
Record label: Spacebomb
Music Critic Score
How the Music Critic Score works
Buy Bedouine from Amazon
Album Review: Bedouine by Bedouine
Excellent, Based on 4 Critics
Based on rating 8.5/10
Great albums originate from fortuitous circumstances. Bedouine's Azniv Korkejian, the Aleppo-born Armenian singer/songwriter by way of Boston, Houston, and eventually Los Angeles, went to Gus Seyffert's studio in hopes of purchasing a reel-to-reel tape machine. Curious, Seyffert, who has worked with the likes of Norah Jones and Beck, asked Korkejian to play a song for him.
Based on rating 4/5
B edouine, real name Azniv Korkejian, was born in Aleppo to Armenian parents, lived in Saudi Arabia as a child, moved to America when her family won a green card lottery, and settled in LA, eventually piquing the interest of discerning artist and label boss Matthew E White. Perhaps in response to her nomadic upbringing, there is a still, lived-in quality to her music, though her debut elegantly shape-shifts between Americana, country, cosmic folk and sun-scorched soul. Nick Drake echoes throughout Heart Take Flight, with its lilting guitar and her voice both wistful and resolute, while the introduction to One of These Days has the cosy bounce of Starland Vocal Band's Afternoon Delight.
Based on rating 4/5
Between her route to her debut and her sublimely unruffled music, Bedouine is the antithesis of careerist singer-songwriters. Born Azniv Korkejian and part-raised in Saudi Arabia, she travelled through the US before reaching LA, where work in sound and dialogue editing led to songwriting through a happy accidental encounter with a musical community. Nurtured over three years and released through Matthew E White's label, her debut luxuriates in splendid isolation, its debts to 60s folk, 70s country, Joni Mitchell's pristine phrasing, and Astrud Gilberto swing arriving unencumbered by attention-grabbing excesses.
Based on rating 4/5
T he latest record from Spacebomb, the Virginia country-soul studio, is a fragrant balm. The songs combine sweet country cadences - as on One of These Days, a love song - with the gentle lilt of 60s folk and Astrud Gilberto; analogue enthusiast Guy Seyffert produces and sometime Beck guitarist Smokey Hormel combines with Spacebomb's signature arrangements to flesh out these honeyed songs. Elegant as it is, this is succour with great heft, too.
'Bedouine'
is available now