Diagnostic Ibrahim Maalouf

We say: Trumpet-based fusion from the mountains of Lebanon.

Ibrahim Maalouf—Lebanon-born, Paris-raised—is careful to identify himself as a composer rather than just a trumpet player but he is clearly both, his smoldering trumpet—think early to mid period Miles—shaping much of the music here.

This is a slow-cooking album. Unhurried and hard to categorize, Diagnostic seems like chamber music one moment; a film noir soundtrack the next. On the introduction to "Your Soul", the elegiac piano sounds quasi-classical, somewhere between Bach and Bill Evans, while "Everything or Nothing", the next track, begins with loud Goran Bregovic-style vocal chorus and thumping percussion before concluding with a lengthy melancholic trumpet and piano passage. Elsewhere, there are moody tangos, and strident Balkan brass that morphs into exhilarating Latin salsa ("Maeva in Wonderland"). "Never Serious" is another strongly Balkan-influenced piece. Maalouf is clearly no stranger to the work of the Markovic's (see below), although his trumpet style is very different from that of the Serbian horn-players: more Oriental with quarter tones, more fluid, less clipped and precise.

Mood changes are rife throughout. "Douce" has a languid French voice-over before the trumpet riff develops into something quite spectacularly heavy. This gentle-to-heavy approach is used again to good effect on the lengthy bonus track "Beirut", which, reaching its angry and cathartic conclusion, becomes almost Led Zeppelin-like in its intensity. Elsewhere, "All the Beautiful Things" begins with Ry Cooder-style guitar and Romany accordion before taking an extensive detour that leads to the long trumpet solo that both closes this piece and introduces "Diagnostic", the eponymous title track.

In addition to the influences and resonances mentioned above, some of Diagnostic—"All the Beautiful Things" in particular—puts me in mind of the work of Turkish Sufi fusionist Mercan Dede. This is no bad thing in my book, and Lebanon is really not so very far from Turkey.