Franois and Sylvain Rabbath have turned six years of touring into a joint album that patiently and intensely distills a variety of musical flavors gathered from around the world. Since the early 1960s, Franois Rabbath’s double bass has resonated through enough landmark recordings to fill several shelves in a record collection. As an arranger, composer, and musician, his imprint on music goes far beyond his collaborations with Barbara, Paco Ibez, Charles Aznavour, or dith Piaf. Aspiring double bassists owe him a groundbreaking method for learning the instrument. Born into a lush musical universe that quickly became his own, his son Sylvain first accompanied him on his travels before settling at the piano and sharing stages around the world at his side. Those years of accumulating visas in their passports were put to good use by father and son. The continents, countries, and cities they passed through became a rich source of inspiration for composing Amall, the album by the Rabbath Electric Orchestra. Long hours spent in the air or on the road, watching passing landscapes that never stayed the same, were transformed into compositions imbued with the atmospheres of the places they crossed or visited. Inspiration sometimes struck with force, like a green oasis appearing in a desert of stoneunexpectedly, as glowing red rocks suddenly dominated an otherwise open landscape with an endless horizon, while the mind wandered into a state between meditation and introspection. Born from these travels, the pieces took on their final colors once brought into the studio, refined, and finally arranged to welcome the guitars of Keziah Jones and Matthieu Chedid, the piano of Laurent de Wilde, the bass of Victor Wooten, the saxophone of Raphal Imbert, and the percussion of Minino Garay. Enhanced by the scale of the jazz-soul orchestrations, by the richness of arrangements bursting from strings, brass, rhythms, or keyboards, the epic breath of vast plains became ingrained.

The urban tension of funk, echoing their movements, found its placealongside more electric expressions or the ambience of a darkened room. Melancholic and melodious, expressive and edgy, the bowed double bassplayed in the high register where few dare to goemerged as the musical guide. One that draws a path between Seville and Minneapolis, connects Franois Rabbath’s native Syria to France, and bridges South America to Europe. It sets the tone to followthe emotion that will carry the piece, and if not filled with light, will carry it there nonetheless. Musical visions packed in luggage, transported in cargo holds, or imprinted in their minds just long enough to cover the distances to the next stopfather and son deepened their bond, beyond family and art. And their hands have never held each other more tightly.