Rami Atassi - New & Ancient Christmas Music (2024) Hi-Res

For decades, Rami Atassi has heard Christmas music played on church pipe organs, with carols being sung by lots of people out of tune. Interestingly, he cites both these elements as stimuli for his very inventive seasonal EP, New & Ancient Christmas Music. Atassi is a widely acclaimed Syrian American guitarist and teacher based in Chicago. Indian influences often infuse his work, alongside Tuareg, afrobeat and spiritual jazz elements. Thus, he offers here a spicy blend to jollify a selection of commonplace yule tunes.

Atassi opted for fretless guitars and percussion as the basis of this project, recorded as a three-piece with no overdubs. The rattling drums on opener We Three Kings sound like an entrance to the spirit world, as Atassi teases out the original tune’s eastern tones. Halfway through, he stirs in a mystic passage as if conducting a nocturnal ceremony, where all is vibration and harmony. Atassi has lately been writing melodies using an Arabic natural minor scale and found good use for it in this tune.

Go Tell It On The Mountain is given a bluesy makeover befitting its origins in the African American tradition. Atassi takes this hymn back to its oral roots, its murky plantation beginnings, far from the orchestrated blowouts done by cathedral choirs. This is more the stuff of New Orleans night life, all handheld percussion and slurring sliding licks. A gritty holler from the heart.

Despite many rumours, Greensleeves was not actually written by Henry VIII for Anne Boleyn while she was still avec tête. The old tyrant, however, was big into dancing and often postponed state affairs if they delayed his time in the medieval mosh circle. Aside from Atassi’s broody intro, Henry might well have dug this funked-up Greensleeves with its fiery psychedelic edge.

Through its mix of holiday and festive imagery, My Favorite Things is the perfect pop song of Noël schmalz. John Coltrane’s deluxe instrumental take played fast and loose with the main melody while preserving a family-friendly warmth. Atassi also opts to keep things smoothly seasonal, jazzing up the chords over soft brush work, darting out a fireside solo or two. If you’re not seeing snowflakes by the end, then rub your windows. A blizzard feels imminent.

Finally, rapid woodpecker percussion and stinging guitar notes transform Auld Lang Syne from folk poem to writhing fusion workout. If it’s not quite Hendrix ripping up Star Spangled Banner, it’s certainly the noise of Atassi raking a scythe through the St Andrew’s Cross. His rendition is less about mockery, but more concerned with adding wider context to the song’s theme via groove and novelty.

Whilst some of us know Christmas as a time of sleet and squall, parts of our world endure the season in sweltering climes. Atassis’s radiant and rhythmic set is a reminder that global connections endure in the message of goodwill.