Search - Tamouz :: The Orange Season Is Over

A Hebrew Rock Classic

Itamar Katz | Ramat-Gan, Israel | 08/13/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"One of Israeli's rock most creative and shortest-lived bands, Tamouz's music was formed by three brilliant songwriters - vocalist Shalom Hanoch, keyboard player Ariel Silber and songwriting legend Meir Ariel (each one of whom had a long and prosperous solo career later on); powered up by an excellent set of players, including the splendid blues guitarist Yehuda Eder and the great drummer Meir Israel. The man, though, who is most responsible for both this very unique album and the band's untimely end, is Jewish-American producer Louis Lahav, who engineered Bruce Springsteen's timeless 'Born To Run' album. It was Lahav who convinced the band to turn their minimalistic live 60s pop-rock into ten minute long rock symphonies with syntheseisers and instrumental bridges galore. Because of that Tamouz were years ahead of their time in the musical province of Israel. It's also because of that that creative desputes between Silber, Hanoch and Lahav caused Tamouz to disband after only one release.With Lahav's intervention it's hardly surprising to find influences of Springsteen, Pink Floyd and other such artists who were hardly popular in Israel in 1976. Synths, hammond organs, sax and guitar solos grace most of the tracks, and give it, combined with increadibly minimalistic melodies and lyrics, a very special flavor, a unique blend of east and west. Lahav's influence also shows in a very clean and very modern production, more than any Israeli band could afford at the time. Shalom Hanoch's avant-garde 'The Deeper The Bluer', with a very Pink Floyd-like instrumental intro, remains one of the finest and most sophisticated recordings in the history of Hebrew rock, and his other songs - I Don't Know How To Tell You, Streetlight, the beautiful Can't Fall Asleep and the heavy metal Quiet Love are sll superb. Silber supplies more friendly rock tunes - the memorable classics Loafer and You Wanted Me That Way (the first one with lyrics by Meir Ariel, the latter by one of Israel's finest songwriters/poets, Yonatan Geffen). The splendid title song - a joint effort from Silber, Hanoch and Ariel - has the best of both.For any hebrew speaker, 'Orange Season is Over' is an essential, even if, like me, you usually avoid Israeli music. Though the CD may be hard to get, it's worth every penny (you'd better start in used-CD stores like 'Third Ear' in Tel-Aviv), and it should stand with the very best Israeli records, with Kaveret's 'Poogy Tales' and 'Nonames'."