I love this album, but my favorites are Immortal and Enchanted Egypt of Hossam Ramzy's. I like it best when he teams with Phil Thorton.
July 15, 2005 |  | Attention Time Travelers: |  |
If you've ever wondered what it must've been like to visit a pharaoh living in ancient Egypt, this recording will help you get there!!!
May 7, 2004 | | Too cliche and the wrong mix | |
I bought this thinking it might be interesting. Not so. How seldom does the fusion of old tradition and new technology work. It is a very very difficult realm to succeed in and be able to pull of something that really works. I love the bellydance music of Hassam Ramzy, but this CD tries to be more of a compositional contrivance to evoke a feeling of Egypt that is more cliche than eternal,actually more like hollywood soundtracks than the experience of really being in eternal egypt. The electronics, which could be used in a different way to evoke that sense of eternity,are too dubby and newagey. I feel bad when great traditionalists with such wealth of roots material (like Hassam,Nusrat,etc.) team up with young upstarts to try to achieve something they think will be new and exciting. But somehow, as far as I'm concerned, something gets lost.Kind of like the new vw bug: it's just not what the real thing was, it only pretends to look like it.
October 10, 2002| | | almost meditative, not energetic | |
Eternal Egypt was the first Middle Eastern cd I bought, and at the time I loved it. Now I realize that there are more exciting cds out there, but I still consider it good.
It's got six songs - all of them are very long and repetitive with the synthesizer overlay providing most of the change. The sound is not "authentic" as it has a lot of electronic instrumentation. For rhythms - it's got a masmoudi, zaar, and two fellahi pieces, as well as two others. The songs are good for practicing dance moves and experimenting with the rhythms. Also useful for more interpretive dances, especially with veil, as they are slow and trance-like. April 6, 2002
| | | Wonderful fusion of Old and New | |
Hossam Ramzy is one of the premier percussionists of the Middle-Eastern style. His work has done more to bring the ancient rythyms of the desert to the western world than any other artist. Phil Thornton brings his trance-like melodic music to this mix to create a fusion of new-age and old-age music.
This work, and the music which inspired it, was made for meditative dance, movement and worship. In fact, the zaar, a ritual dance featured on the CD, can go on for many hours, until the dancers drop down exhausted. Most of the drum rythyms come from the "Sha'abi", one of the oldest styles of folk dancing in Egypt. June 22, 2001
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