Join us on a journey to the Central Desert 🐪.
An imaginary region inviting us all to imagine a different, hopefully better place. Taking the liberty in inventing a brand new ancient tradition, We supply the soundtrack of this land and invite you to fill in the blanks: What kind of a place is the Central desert? What's the food like? and the language(s)?

One thing we know for certain is that the music there is Geographically confusing. For example this song, "Gan", an Afro Balkan Nursery rhyme (?!?), two areas that do not border with each other but whose musical traditions mix beautifully. The verse and chorus are written in a typical African pentatonic minor scale, but the transition to Maqam Saba in the bridge sounds so natural one might think they belong to the same tradition. and in fact they do - this is the musical tradition of the Central desert - Building intercontinental bridges with music.

Here Ittai plays a small Arabic Ney. The Ney, is an end-blown flute that is widely used in traditional Persian, Turkish, Jewish, Arab, and Egyptian music. In some of these musical traditions, it is the only wind instrument used. The ney has been played for over 4,500 years, dating back to ancient Egypt, making it one of the oldest musical instruments still in use, and is thought to be the biblical instrument referred to as Halil (חליל).

The Ney is playing Maqam Saba, which tends to have a mourn-full musicality to it while at the same time lends itself naturally to groovy and uplifting songs. This combination of this mode with the rest of the band's instruments, Joe's Distorted electric Guitar, with Oz's super melodic yet intensely groovy Bass playing and David's Afro Jazz free driving, aims to create a timeless, placeless moment. This continues Ittai's journey of many years, fusing genere and mixing musical traditions to create an ever evolving Modern Tradition. Personal yet universal and global, anything goes. West African rhythm with Arabic microtonal modes? easy. Electric Turkish Saz playing Mauritanian lines inspired by the music of the great singer Noura Mint Seymali? We can do, though not in this song... Even Klezmer Clarinet (Ittai's 'Forte') can be called into action if it feels right. And it does...

On September 2024 we filmed an entire live performance of the band - Ittai Binnun Quartet. A group of incredibly talented musicians as you can see here in the solos section, where the guys really give it their maximum. in the near future I'll be releasing more from this filmed concert, (or Live Session as it's called today...) so make sure you subscribe and press the notification icon to get notified when more videos are released.

Ittai Binnun Quartet are:
David Dagmi - Drums.
Joe Taylor - Guitar.
Oz Yehieli - Bass.
Ittai Binnun - Saz and wind instruments.

Compositions by Ittai Binnun

Video:
Director and editing - Ziv Kessel
Camera - Sangit
Sound:
Recording - Avri Borochov
P.A. - Noam Korizer
Styling - Tzipora El Re'i
Runner - Ido Binnun
Carpets courtesy of "Sumak" carpets
Project management - Anael Shir Shoshan


Gan was originally released on Ittai's EP "Ethno Digital" here is a link to the studio version of this song - [ Ссылка ]

Supported by:
הקרן ליוצרים עצמאיים של משרד התרבות

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