Whether you want to dance the drunken night away, or wallow in solitary self-pity, Bahr Abu Greisha is your man. I don’t know much about the singer, but I know enough to strongly recommend him to anyone with a working ear or two and a heart capable of being broken.
Abu Greisha, like his first name suggests, sings the songs of a man lost at sea, or, in this case, a swirling whirlpool of confusion, despair and mind-altering loneliness. Occasionally, he’ll wash up on the shores of some island sanctuary, find love and sing something effortlessly beautiful about it. But, like all true poets, he’ll quickly work his way to heartbreak, if only to have a reason to throw himself back into the sea while wailing something so depressing that you’ll race him to do the same.
Nowhere is this tragic trajectory laid out more clearly — and rewardingly — than on his album “Rahhal” (“Wanderer”) and its title track, a 17-minute odyssey into the mind of a wandering soul. It is a journey through a world deserted after the loss of a lover.
Abu Greisha sings of endless nights and the ghosts that haunt them, and of swimming against the current and drowning. He sings of misery and woe, but also of those rare moments that give us the strength to push through. It never sounds bitter or resentful; even at his most melancholy, the defiance in his voice is a buoy bobbing on dark waters, a solid shoulder to cry on in a melting mess of a world.
