In an interview with the Guardian about a decade ago, Brian Eno suggested that Arabic music had the potential to feed into the mainstream and resonate globally just as Blues had in the early 60s. This hasn’t happened yet.

I have recently found myself listening to a few songs of Middle Eastern origin and thought I’d group them together here, from poetic harmonies to the reworked and dub-inflected.

Translated from Farsi: The pleasant moment of sitting in front of the door, me and you. With two figures and two faces, with one life, me and you. Joyful and careless, free from distracting myths, me and you. Me and you, without us (ego), gather because of virtu (love)

This next song comes from A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, though I’m not sure where the artist is from considering that the film and its parts are a complete mesh of North America and the Middle East, but I really enjoyed the simplicity of this track and how it was used in the film.

The film favoured style over substance but some elements of its style have stayed with me. Below is a playlist of the complete soundtrack which I have listened through a couple of times now, comprised of many songs that I would have never heard otherwise, in a style unknown to me.

Just as the song from Bollywood film Gangs of Wasseypur 2 had a lasting effect on me for being different to anything I had heard before, I’m sure I’ll listen to these tracks over and force them on my friends when given the opportunity.