Bachar Mar-Khalifé

Stylistically, Who's Gonna get the Ball from behind the Wall of the Garden Today? is an impossible album to pin down. Starting off with a two-minute organ dirge worthy of a Giallo flick, second track "Yas Nas," a traditional Kuwaiti song, is an irresistible Arabic stomper with a heavy piano riff, blistering percussion and a kick-drum that recalls the organic dance music of Brandt Brauer & Frick. Bachar Mar-Khalife is a classically trained, French-Lebanese pianist and percussionist who started out as a professional concert performer. Conceived of as a meeting of East and West, the stylistic and linguistic split presented herein illustrates Mar-Khalife's feelings of a dual nationality and complex identity. "Machins Choses" (which features a duet with singer Kid A), a cover of a Serge Gainsbourg number, is contrasted with "Marea Negra," another cover, this time of a revolutionary song concerning the Arab Spring, with lyrics by late Syrian poet Ibrahim Qashoush. A heady mixture of Arabic and French, stompers and ballads, it's a superb and uniquely musically schizophrenic album.