Salim Nourallah Calling Manila
Americana Highways brings you this premiere of Salim Nourallah’s new album Calling Manila. The album was produced by Salim and Faris Nourallah; recorded by Faris, Salim, John Dufilho, Gui Murillo and Kevin Brown; mixed by Salim, Faris, John Dufilho, Kevin Brown and Gui Murillo; and mastered by James Driscoll, with cover design by Jeff Caudill.
Musicians on the album are Salim Nourallah on lead vocals, acoustic guitar and bass; with Faris Nourallah on Manila sound FX, and Pete Hayes (the Figgs) on drums.
As Salim tells us about the album, “a couple of years ago I went trawling the Nourallah vaults and found a bunch of my brother’s unfinished songs from about twenty years ago.
“‘Reunion Time’ was just over a minute long — a snippet of an idea. I thought it was excellent from the first time I heard it. Later, when we started work on the first Nourallah Brothers music in over twenty five years multiple hurdles immediately arose, including logistics. Faris was living in Manila and I live in Texas.
“The other hurdle was that Faris quit writing music about eighteen years ago. I’d found almost a dozen of his songs from back when he was still writing and ‘Reunion Time’ was one of my favorites. The only problem was that it needed to be more substantive.
“We used new recording technology to separate Faris’ lead vocal track from the piano he’d cut, and then we extended the song’s structure. We ended up with a new verse that I sang as well as an instrumental break. Later, our friend Pete Hayes from the Figgs cut some drums and I played bass.”
This is an incredible album mined from the vaults and releasing 26 years after their first and only other album together as the Nourallah Brothers. The music celebrates “being alive (and barely holding on to the reasons that I need to survive),” the oddities of life, industry, and needing to keep your head down, drinking beer at a reunion, and more. It bounces along with a lonesome sound – punctured with trumpets, tambourines, violin, piano, and always bright guitar. Even the passage of time and the years that were lost is poignantly and unironically treated. It is overall just a delight.
You can find the album here on Bandcamp:https://palosantotx.bandcamp.com/album/calling-manila
Enjoy some of our previous coverage here: REVIEW: Salim Nourallah “A Nuclear Winter”