Discerning listeners might recall me waxing lyrical about last year’s album Gilgamesh from Rubi Ate The Fig – an intriguing fusion of rock guitar and the Middle East, sold with the irresistible tag of “Led Zeppelin and Mahavishnu travelling through the desert, stopping to have tea with Grace Slick” – it certainly worked its exotic charms on me! Think of Zep’s classic Kashmir – particularly the subsequent Plant / Page reworking on the album No Quarter – and you begin to get the flavour of this band. We now have the band’s (sort of) follow-up full-length production, Desert Electric, released through UltraMarine Records. Let me explain….
Desert Electric has been over five years in the making and was originally written and recorded in Pasadena, LA. The making was a troubled one, disaster striking when producer and engineer Rich Mouser’s studio (where they were recording) was completely lost in the LA fires last year – taking with it the master tapes for the original version of Desert Electric, a limited release in 2022….so it was back to square one. The band have since picked up the pieces and spent this past year finalizing the “reconstructed” album. This explains why six of the nine songs contained here have previously appeared in some form.
It has most definitely been worth the wait! The nine songs on the album have been structured to tell a coherent tale, with overarching themes of love, sex and death blending with a superb musical/cinematic take on the Sinai desert and the lives of the Bedouins who inhabit that exotic land. Rubi Ate The Fig actually hail from the good ol’ US, although you’d never think that, and I believe they were formed around 2016. Their music is built around a middle-eastern core and groove, complete with sumptuous, mystical lyrics and exotic harmonies, rhythms and arrangements – and punctuated by some tasty out-and-out rock guitar work. They aim to transport the listener to another (hotter!) world, and they certainly succeeded with me.
The seven piece outfit is led by singer, composer and guitarist Sharon Eliashar, born in Jerusalem but raised in the low desert of California. Sharon has studied Middle-Eastern music, classical composition, and has spent much of her time with the Bedouins of the Sinai Desert, who became a profound source of inspiration for her music and evocative lyrics. The band also features the considerable talents of guitarist and keyboards star Marc Mann, whose work with George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, ELO, Oingo Boingo and System of a Down provides the heavier rock influence to the proceedings.
Added to these two the talents of Rich Mouser, a guitar driven rocker and respected prog rock engineer who has worked with artists that include Tom Petty, Chris Cornell, Dream Theatre, Tears For Fears and Spock’s Beard; Ali Paris, who plays the quanun (a middle-eastern 76-string zither); Polly Tapia Ferber, a hand percussionist majoring on the dumbeq (persian drum), frame drum and riqq (a sort of tambourine); Miles Jay, an experienced bassist, cellist, composer and producer having worked around the world combining instruments from the Mediterranean, Middle East and East Africa to re-imagine and create new sounds; and Danny Montgomery, a drummer from San Francisco who has recorded and performed with Percy Sledge, Ray Charles, Billy Paul, Mose Allison, Taj Mahal, Jack Sheldon, Johnette Napolitano and Jerry Harrison. The word “eclectic” doesn’t begin to do these guys sufficient justice!
The album opens with Breathe With Me Slowly, it’s the single that garnered much critical attention in recent French music awards, a love song that describes a chaste seduction involving just ‘eyes touching eyes’. It’s quite full-on rock in its arrangement, the band setting their stall out with a choppy syncopated beat, swirling zither, great percussion, illuminated by some very tasty lead guitar. Sharon sounds quite strident in her delivery, reminding me of the equally exotic Dutch band The Dame. The blend of zither and guitar in particular is wonderful!
Gilgamesh is next, the title track from their previous recording, and what an impressive number this is. The arrangement immediately transports you into a sultry, shimmering, desert vibe. A love song from the desert that includes a fantastic assembly of percussion, an excellent blend of ‘acoustic’ stringed instruments and underpinning electric chords, an intriguing rhythm, all topped by Sharon’s tenderly expressive voice. Simply mesmerising, it reminds me of Richard and Linda Thompson’s 1975 Sufi-influenced Pour Down Like Silver album? My personal favourite track.
They Came with Stones has a pacey rocky intro nicely blending with the harmonies in the chorus lines. A strongly “proggy” vibe here, again with a wonderfully crisp mix and production, you feel like you’re stood in the centre of the band performing. Another great mix of semi-acoustic strings and rock-driven chords. Caress The Moon follows, addressing suicide and self-destruction in a slower, moody, haunting arrangement. This has a generally conventional rock beat that then gets brilliantly illuminated with bursts of middle-eastern instruments and some gorgeous guitar work. It builds like “Kashmir”, and might just be the essential Rubi Ate the Fig song.
Your Story lyrically is about watching a person you love slowly kill themselves. Musically it has shades of a modern rock-ballad, almost a hint of The Pineapple Thief? Soaring lead guitar lines, there is some serious musicianship going on here, within another superbly clean mix. It would be so easy for this crazy cauldron of instruments to sound a bit muddy, but the opposite is superbly the case, adding to the total immersion of the listener.
The Tent opens with a zephyr swirling outside your aural soundscape, the song building in harmony with the described storm. It’s built around an interesting descending cadence of minor tones, again quite “Kashmir-like” sequences, all adding to the gently haunting atmosphere. Essentially a rock track with exotic additions, this is the longest track and the most ‘proggy’ – quite the little epic. It features love, sex, power dynamics and murder – a song that Sharon started to write in her 20s, but then realized that she “needed to be a woman” to finally finish.
In The Garden is full-on mystical middle-east, it’s that mesmerising combination of minor chords played on a mix of strings instruments; wonderful percussion from the assembly, haunting flute notes and a lovely melody delivered by a dreamy, honey-laden voice. Enter a beefier soft-rock rhythm and eastern strings and you’re away with the (Egyptian) fairies. Tremor, by contrast, is slower, jazz-blues-like, reminding me of “Damnation”- era Opeth. There’s again a lovely sense of dreamy rhythm driving the ensemble, washing over you, lulling you to bathe in the luscious arrangement, especially the sax/trumpet section; even before the extended, bluesy guitar solo steals the show.
Flight brings this dreamy sequence to a conclusion. Another low-key, minor-tone intro swishes in, Porcupine Tree-like, the arrangement then building and getting ‘fatter’ thanks to the smooth blend of drums, bass, strings and chords. The drumming in particular becomes beefier and more tribal as the song progresses, before fading into the Arabian sunset….
This album, newly salvaged and reconstructed from the wreckage of Rich Mouser’s studio, successfully blends the exoticism of the Middle East with the huge electric soundscape of rock. “All my songs are about love, sex or death!” says Sharon Eliashar, songwriter and vocalist. Rubi Ate The Fig offer an immersive journey of psychedelic rock, lifted straight out of the sand-dunes, full of deft instrumentation, passionate vocals, stunning guitar work and enough Middle Eastern and prog-rock influences to captivate a wide range of audiences – so dive in and dream!
And my personal favourite….
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