Hany Mehanna - Music For Airplanes

Music For Airplanes is a nineteen-song collection of instrumental showpieces and scores for Egyptian films and TV shows from 1973-1980, from the pioneer of the Oriental synth, Hany Mehanna, along with his Celestial Orchestra, featuring legendary instrumentalists such as Omar Khorshid and Khamish Henkish. Re-mastered from Hany’s personal archives, this double-album bring together a selection of infectious rarities and previously unreleased gems by the "Egyptian King of the Farfisa Organ." 
 
Mehanna, a virtuoso keyboardist, composer, and arranger, began as an accordion, organ and synth wizard in the illustrious orchestras backing the supreme Umm Kulthum, divas Warda and Fayza Ahmed, as well as the inimitable Abdel Halim Hafez, as part of the legendary troupe known as Al Firqa Al Masiya. Along with the visionary yet blind Ammar Al-Sheriyi, Mehanna was instrumental in the development of the oriental keyboard by experimenting with oscillators to play quarter tones - this paved the way for keyboards earning a permanent role in modern Egyptian music. He later experienced a creative outburst as a composer and arranger allowing him to craft his own iconic sound that playfully teetered between deeply charismatic Arabic maqams and avantgarde electronic hypnotism - an imprint partly tracing its roots to his Sufi father who evoked a transcendental musical consciousness in him from an early age. 
 
Over the course of his career, Mehanna scored ninety-three films and thirty-eight television series, yet only released one full-length album (The Miracles of the Seven Dances). Following the reissue of that album in 2018, an ambitious mission to delicately remaster a selection of Hany’s personal reel-to-reel archive with painstaking attention to sound quality has led to the production of Music For Airplanes. Whilst many of these tracks were originally composed as soundtrack scores, they share a timeless identity and are testament to how Mehanna pushed the envelope of what the classic Egyptian musical canon could evolve to be, cementing his status as one of the maestros of polyphonic maqams. 

TRACKLIST: 

1. Hanady 

2. Haya Ha'ira 

3. Al Qina' Al Za'ef 

4. Reem 

5. Ta'er Al Layl 

6. Rehala 

7. Walad Wa Bint 

8. Ayni Betrif 

9. Less Al Thulatha 

10. Rehla 

11. Shahr Al Assal 

12. Sympathique 

13. Baya 

14. Ayam Al Marah 

15. Al Nil 

16. Daa Al Omr Ya Walady 

17. Al Dawama (opening theme) 

18. Damat Alam 

19. Dawama (end theme) 

• Limited-edition double-LP pressed on 180g vinyl 
• Housed in custom, handmade gatefold jacket with extensive liner notes and photos 
• Remastered from Hany's personal archives

browse collections: 
African collection 

view all new releases...