Habibi Gün and Samara (DJ)
7:30pm Thursday January 30th, 2025
Main Drag Music - 50 S 1st St, Brooklyn, NY 11249
$20
Tickets! ->
https://maindragmusic.com/collections/live-at-main-drag/products/1-30-24-brooklyn-maqam-presents-habibi-gun-and-dj-samara-ghali
Habibi Gün showcases the works of revered Arab composers such as Riyad al Sunbati and Mohammed Fawzi alongside Western influences like Ennio Morricone, Link Wray, and that late, great Lebanese- American, Dick Dale. The resulting listening experience is sprawling, evocative, and unique—stark and contemplative one moment, abandoned and trance-inducing the next.
The Habibi Gün set will be followed by a DJ set by Samara!
About The Artists:
The musical collective, Habibi Gün, began as a whimsical and wide-ranging pandemic recording project in which guitarist/multi-instrumentalist/arranger/ producer Josh Farrar collaborated on an eclectic and elaborate set of cover songs with local Arab and American musicians including: percussionists Gilbert Mansour and Philip Mayer; reedists Gideon Forbes and Daro Behroozi;
kanunists John Murchison and Firas Zreik; and trumpeter Kenny Warren.
The current lineup features Farrar (Spanish Johnny’s Opera, The Foster Family, Bil Afrah Project) and Forbes (NYAO, Nortonk, Brooklyn Nomads), bassist James “Sprocket” Royer (Souren Baronian, Taqsim, NYAO), violinist Insia Malik (NYAO, National Arabic Orchestra, Bassam Saba, Simon Shaheen), oudist/guitarist Gabe Lavin (NYAO, Near East Ensemble, Naseer Shamma’s Oud Orchestra), keyboardist Hatim Belyamani (HAT, Brooklyn
Nomads) and on percussion, Gilbert Mansour (Sheherazaad, Ismail Fernandez) and Alber Baseel (Simon Shaheen, Ahmad al Khatib) The stylistic range of the compositions —from 60s bellydance to Sun Ra to Black Sabbath and back— keeps both listeners and musicians on their toes.
For Farrar, a rock musician who has been immersed in Arabic music for the last decade, and his collaborators, Habibi Gün offers an opportunity to put Western and Middle Eastern genres in conversation with each other, resulting in an idiosyncratic variant of that dirty “f” word - fusion - that is curious, delightful, strange to behold.
Samara is a Syrian-American DJ who aims to showcase groovy music, hidden gems, live instrumentalists, and other artists from the Arab diaspora. In her selections, Samara attempts to honor the vastness of Arabic music, and its power in uniting generations and diasporas. She welcomes a range of musical genres in this sense, and finds harmony between the undiscovered and the familiar, with a special love for rare grooves from decades past.