Sound Performance: A Review of Mow Ray's 'Crossing the River Jordan'

Mow Ray (Mohammad Resyad/ محمد رشد) is somewhat of a string whisperer. He has an uncanny ability to make practically every string instrument that he holds in his hands to speak in ways unbeknownst to its audience and the instrument itself even.

He is a gracious host of sound, bringing together the guitar and oud, on the one hand, and jazz, blues, Arabic music, raga and now, country music on a vast soundscape that is made more vibrant by the range of his voice and impeccable tonality.

But 'Crossing the River Jordan' is a feat on its own merit. The artist ever so eloquently uses melody and the sonorous tones of country music to transpose his listeners from the river Jordan, which sits as a window into the holy land and the decades long oppression and resistance of the Palestinians, onto rivers like the Mississippi that have witnessed the tumultuous waves of country and gospel music throughout American history.

Ray does something quite remarkable, he weaves a narrative that stands bluntly confronting any apathy remaining in his audience towards the suffering of the Palestinians: the blood of the holy land is just across the river, not thousands of miles away, but can now be felt in American heart and hinterlands. The Mississippi and Jordan rivers become a single metaphor, married together by the country sound, in order to bring the story home.

This is a narrative weaved by a masterful artist, whose breadth of knowledge in musical genres gives way to a depth in each of its vocabularies such that he is not only able to speak each of these tongues, but host them in such an eloquent conversation.

Rasyid is an artist who lives to create and vice versa. His passion for music reverberates at his and its core. This shows clearly in 'Crossing the River Jordan' and one can only look forward to the breathes he unfolds next on his instruments.