In their second album “Towards the Light,” Les Arrivants (The Arrivals) builds on their first album “Home” by pushing the boundaries of their instruments, traditions, and musical worlds. Amichai Ben Shalev (bandoneon), Abdul-Wahab Kayyali (oud), and Hamin Honari (tombak, daf and percussion) embark on a sonic adventure that takes them to new terrain of artistic exploration. These three musicians developed their comfort zones and built their homes in Montréal during the COVID-19 pandemic between the summers of 2019 and 2020. While they sought familiarity and comfort in their first album “Home,” with “Towards the Light” they decide to embrace the unfamiliar and the uncertain.
 
This is their next phase of resettlement and relocation. The repertoire Les Arrivants has developed in “Towards the Light” tackles the perpetual journey, the shifting terrain, the permanence of precarity, and the lack of countries to call one’s own. In navigating these “foreign” waters, Les Arrivants carve a place for themselves as they continue to challenge the paradigm of genre-based music, and the tag of world music.
 
The emotions on “Towards the Light” are even more complex, and the sounds are even more resemblant of migration and travel. The music builds on previously explored themes – nostalgia, happiness, comfort, confusion, unresolved tension, inconsolable grief, homage to new places and new friends – and adds “statelessness,” hope and triumph. The uncharted path takes Les Arrivants one step closer towards “the light.” As the world navigates some extremely dark times, “Towards the Light” can be a refreshing departure from convention and conformity.
 
© Abdul-Wahab Kayyali
 
Les Arrivants – Towards the Light
 
1. City of Ashes
2. Phoenix Landing
3. Hayrah (Confusion)
4. Apatride (feat. Charles Papasoff)
5. Espérances (feat. Didem Başar)
6. Towards the Light (feat. Didem Başar)
7. Piroozi (Victory) (feat. Didem Başar)
8. Bagelissimo (Mile End Tango) (feat. Reza Abaee and Pierre-Alexandre Maranda)
9. Corazón Desolado (Desolate Heart) (feat. Reza Abaee and Pierre-Alexandre Maranda)
10. Mohajer (Migrant) (feat. Reza Abaee and Pierre-Alexandre Maranda)