idlero Released in 1995, 'Khomsa' is Anouar Brahem fourth release for ECM and his third as a leader (in 1994 ECM released 'Madar' where Anouar Brahem plays along Jan Garbarek and Ustad Shaukat Hussain) Just by looking at the line-up for this album you can tell it's a different story.Gone are the oriental players from the first two albums(excepting violin player Bechir Selmi). Their place is taken by a stellar eclectic team of european jazz musicians-Richard Galliano on accordion, Palle Danielson on double bass, John Christenssen on drums, Francois Couturier on piano/synthesizer( starting here what will be a long collaboration with Anouar Brahem) and Jean Marc Larche on soprano saxophone .This great musicians combo never plays together, rather you will hear solos, duets or trio playing according to Brahem's compositions. In his prolific activity before ECM launchd him on the international scene, Anouar Brahem wrote music for many plays and movies.For 'Khomsa' he selcted sixteen of these compositions which he wanted for a long time to perform in a free manner( “freed from the chains of images and texts” ). With Anouar Brahem taking a step back as frontman in some of the tracks(a notable change from his previous albums ), Richard Galliano becomes the dominant figure, his accordion adding (surprisingly) a more jazzy sound to this album. For me the highlights of this album are - 'Soufle Un Vent De Sable'(beautiful duo of oud and accordion ), 'Vague', 'E La Nave Va'. Not a bad album but IMHO weaker than all other Brahem albums.