“FRAGRANCE”

Quote by Alexander Varty

"Singer and multi-instrumentalist Emad Armoush hails from Damascus, in embattled Syria. JP Carter, François Houle, Jesse Zubot, and Kenton Loewen are all Canadians, with roots strung out across that massive country from British Columbia to Quebec. And on Fragrance, the first album from their project Rayhan, they show that they’ve found a shared home in music—music that’s sometimes unmistakably Middle Eastern, sometimes as free as any jazz bird’s, sometimes eerily electronified, and sometimes downright playful, as on the New Orleans boom-bap polyphony of the new record’s “When We Were Kids”. There’s the scent of a better world here, one where joy balances sorrow and the only bombs dropped come from Loewen’s drums. It’s a beautiful thing."