Wahdon

"This previously rare LP has been reissued on vinyl. It has two sides of around 15 minutes apiece, one in the classic Lebanese style and the other adopting a mild disco-funk ballad approach, impregnated by Stateside influences. Rahbani is also the composer and arranger, creating a strong foundation from which his mother's voice vaults higher and higher. The first side features oud, percussion, sprawling strings and a male-dominated vocal chorus. The second brings in a tougher bass drum kick, electric bass and a series of warbling synth solos ... Without grasping the Arabic language, we can still drink in Fairuz's melancholy draft ... Fairuz is smoochily forlorn on the title cut (which translates as Alone), spreading charm through a retro gauze of cinematic drama".

"Dancefloor ecstasy from a venerable Arab veteran ... The Middle Eastern equivalent of Barbra Streisand going disco, perhaps, but it's tackled with such confidence - as is the title track, a jazz-inflected piano ballad - that any doubts about the singer's career lasting into the 1980s were instantly banished".

"Fairuz's 1978 album found her at somewhat of a crossroads in her career ... While the first side - exemplified here by the cascading drums, swooping strings, massed male chants and sublime Eastern scale-singing of Fairuz on "Baatilak" - provides a stellar exercise in the type of traditional fare that had long been her forte, the flip offers up a set of altogether more modernistic concoctions. Muscular basslines, funky guitars, punchy horns and Latin piano are melded with sublime strings and Fairuz's inimitable vocals on "Al Bostah" to refract disco through a Lebanese lens. The title track melds Fairuz's eastern melodies with jazz saxophones and lush, western-influenced, string arrangements to stunningly emotive effect. The singer would continue her East/West, Ziad Rahbani-assisted experiments on future albums, but Wahdon remains a shimmering benchmark".