1. KHANGA
2. HARAAM
3. AL JAZEERA AFTER DARK
4. CHANT
5. SNAKE IN THE BASKET
6. JOHNNY PASSPORT
7. DECEPTION
8. BHANGRA AT THE BORDER
9. TURAH
10. TEARS FOR HADITHA
11. HARAAM DUB
Written, produced and performed by Kamran Khan. Additional synthesizers, engineering and executive production Strange Powers. Additional vocals and physical album art layout and design by Mario Zoots.
Mishka review by Theway Peoplestare
https://web.archive.org/web/20120707224 ... m/bloglin/
Men in Burka is the latest project of Kamran Khan “the Ramadan-Dadaist from Denver” who is best known for his work with indie art electronic group Modern Witch. The fascinating mind of electronic aficionado, Strange Powers and popular contemporary visual artist & fellow Modern Witch member Mario Zoots complete the trio. The first time you hear Men In Burka, a sultry kundalini rises from within and dongs a knell at the crusty lids of your mind’s eye. Occurring upon your spirit, addictive as black powder from Tangier. Men In Burka are the sultans of making an impression on your mind. It’s unforgettable. Your brain softly drum-smokes with subtle aromatic tealeaves and dried fruits over an unrecallable time span. Such stickiness is powerful arsenal in an online music world overflowing with content upon content. This is real intelligent danceable world music heralding from the USA. Bounce music waves lap explicitly upon Mesopotamia/Indus Valley soundscapes and god’s soldiers who contemplate the decade’s affrays. Samples of gunfire, riot, upheaval and unrest litter the tracks intermittently and constantly.
The opening tracks transport you to what could be a busy west-asian market place circa 1946. This marketplace is spiced, looped and bustling with dance hall sleng teng rhythmic snake charmers and men peddling charas fantasies. It’s not all a forbidden romance set from within the nooks of a Zoroastrian fire temple though. The self titled album recently released on Tundra Dubs speaks of serious political implications in the not-so-current-affairs of middle east clashing with west. However, this is not the typical reflection of cultural fusions, mismatches and socio-economic observations made by many artists today. This is a direct call out to the western world to pay attention to the complex power struggles, the tribal wars, the equality politics and the involvement of superpowers in the regions of the Middle East – particularly Pakistan. So get alert.
The upbeat lure of the opening tracks engages you. Though by the time you are comfortably and fully turned on (somewhere near the middle of the album) it takes a turn for the very deep. ‘Chants’ starts to bring the album to a decisively more witch mob feel with sounds you might hear in an opium tent while watching a cyber war flick on VHS. The track ends with the statement “ban the burka, really” while ‘Bhangra at the border’ asks you to “take a look at really what’s happening”. (The magical genie of the web tells me ‘bhangra’ means a type of popular music combining Punjabi folk traditions with Western pop music). Famous American Muslim Malcolm X even gets a mention. In any case it gets darker, dreamier and one can only assume with so many political overtones, ascends deeper and deeper into the meaningful. Men In Burka’s self titled release will lift you into something quite joyous, forbidden, disastrous, sexual and trancelike as it pulls and pushes you through an immense meditation. Your body may move involuntarily – but you won’t care because it feels so damn satisfying.