Well, this nugget was a nice surprise, and I love a split record, especially when each side is so dramatically different from the other. Mont-real (split), a 10” vinyl-only release from Carbon Records and The Annex Blues Society, was recorded live in Montreal and features a fifteen-minute solo oud improvisation from Sam Shalabi on Side A and a duo piece from Liam Grant and Mike Gangloff on the flip.
Sam Shalabi (The Dwarfs Of East Agouza), is a composer and improviser operating out of Quebec and Egypt. His music brings in a range of styles, including jazz, classical and Arabic music, and he is often seen playing either electric guitar (there’s some pretty wild trio stuff on YouTube) or the oud, as he is here. Due to the quick decay of notes on the acoustic oud, Sam is able to pluck at quite a rate, without the sound becoming muddy, as would probably be the case with an instrument through a pickup or with more sustain. This gives his music here a welcome lightness, even though, in places, the tempo hits some pretty impressive heights.
There is also a beautiful sense of melody in this improvised sound, which comes to the fore in places and just as quickly gets hidden among a tangle of notes. A constant is the feeling that Sam is very much in control of his sound and range across the whole longform piece.
Liam Grant’s Prodigal Son LP is one of my favourites this year, and this song is a version of the twelve-minute solo twelve-string guitar piece from that album, with added Gangloff on hardanger-style fiddle (a violin with four bowed strings and five ‘sympathetic’ or drone strings). As with Sam’s side, the music here does get pretty juicy, and it’s also a banging longform piece, with the kind of energy and intuition you would expect from two of the most in form musicians on the circuit.
On Prodigal Son, Salmon Tails up the River was a solo guitar piece blasted to tape, giving the music something of a lo-fi sound; here, the sound is crisp, which means both instruments can be heard clearly, two details resulting in a song that maintains the spirit of the original but has its own personality. Liam’s guitar ebbs and flows throughout, easing off to allow Mike room to really go in, before pushing the pedal himself. The two sides are absolutely exhilarating, and I wish I was there for both performances.
As the Carbon notes succinctly put it: Essential release!!!
Mont-real (split) (October 24th, 2025) Carbon Records/The Annex Blues Society
Bandcamp: https://carbon-records.bandcamp.com/album/mont-real-split