condition (record/cover): NM / EX (barcode sticker on back)

Elias Rahbani was the younger brother of Assi and Mansour, the Rahbani Brothers who wrote Fairuz's repertoire, and he built his own career as Lebanon's pop modernist: film scores, TV themes, and instrumental albums like this one, where Arabic melody meets electric organ, fuzz guitar, drum kit and strings in the Beirut of the early seventies. Mosaic of the Orient is the definitive example, a record of belly-dance rhythms and maqam melodies dressed as lounge, made in a city that thought of itself as Monte Carlo with better food.

It has become a fixture of the "Arabic groove" reissue market for good reason: the rhythm section is real, the organ sound is filthy, and Rahbani's melodies stick. Original Lebanese Arabesque pressing, catalogue number 1001, the label's first release.