analog

 last year i went with my best friends by train to a nearby city. it was the 23th of december, we went to the christmas market, ate crepe and pretzels. it was cold and dark outside, so we walked to the big church to warm a bit up, but unfortunately it was closed. since one of us was anyway still searching for some christmas presents, we went to the shopping arcade next to the market place and found ourselves in a consumer electronics retailer (it's really strange to use this word... is it even a word? in german we simply use the brand names of these stores instead of a general term). we started to browse the cd department, they had comfortable big armchairs where you could sit and put earphones on, steaming all other sounds. i picked aimlessly some cds with nice-looking covers and sat down. i was cold and a bit tired, happy to extinguish the pre-christmas noise around me for some time. i listened to a few tracks on the first cds of my pile. after a while i came to "le pas du chat noir" by anouar brahem. the machine blipped and there it was. 

12 tracks, 70:38 minutes of absolutely extraordinary, indescribably good music. 

in the comments of this youtube-video someone describes brahem's music as the marriage of arabian music and french chansons. in jazzman's review of the album there ist just one word: "choc". that seems to be the best describtion of what i felt when the first composition "le pas du chat noir" started.

it wasn't until now that i properly listened through the whole album, i kept it in my room like a treasure. when school was finished and i sat in a muggy and sun flooded cabin on the beginning of a long journey, i pressed the play-button again and there was it afresh: "le choc".