Right Night

“We wrote this song well before the global financial crisis happened, so it’s crazy that the song relates and reflects what is going on right now,” laughs Hamdan al-Abri at his track Blank Notes, which also lends its name to Abri’s second album. The lyrics imagine a world where the value of money disappears overnight, and is oddly prophetic for a band based in the home of financial turmoil, Dubai. “It would be chaotic and disorderly at first, then calm and peace; no borders, no greed, no corruption.”

It is a Utopian view, of course, but when combined with Abri’s infectious and relentlessly upbeat sound, it’s a message we might all do well to ponder right now – not least amid the mammoth towers and business parks of their credit-crunched home. Recorded at London’s Fortress Studios on retro equipment – Neumann mics and an analogue tape machine, for instance – to provide the warmth of a classic Motown album, Blank Notes is an ideal springtime antidote to whatever crisis is looming next.

With ten tracks, five of them reworked and rerecorded from their debut – an album they felt lacked their true personality – Blank Notes also represents an incredible burst of creativity: the whole process of recording, mixing and engineering took less than a week. “We wanted the album to feel like we were performing right there in your living room,” Hamdan says. “We were restricted by time and resources, but it was good as we were all focused and determined to get some real soul into the recording. A lot of music nowadays sounds too ‘perfect’, with no mistakes, like the track was played and sang by a computer. I love it when you can hear the mistakes and imperfections in a record, it’s human and sincere.”

With the likes of Mark Ronson, Amy Winehouse, Adele and Duffy unleashing a soul revival right now, Abri look set to be Dubai’s answer to the gloom of the times. “Whatever situation the world is in, music will always be a remedy. I hope people see Abri as a remedy: that’s why I love making and performing music.”