Orient Express
A Desert Fantasy (Canadian LP)
Polydor (Canada) / 1978 / 2424 192
LP-album 33 ⅓ rpm
Genre: Dance
Produced by Steve Gilston & Franz Auffray
Arranged by Uri Kariv
All songs written by Gilston / Kariv except A2 by Hadar
Side A
1. Desert Fantasy (12:55)
2. Nights Of Roses (3:46)
Side B
1. Desert Disco (5:40)
2. Ali's Funk (3:16)
3. Abdullah's Wedding (6:07)
Great, obscure French disco LP, which can be described as middle-eastern sounding. Despite this, its title track "Desert fantasy" sounds very much inspired by "Cerrone's Paradise".
"Abdullah's wedding" is also very worthy of mention for the tune, and for the lyrics which are very funny.
Early on in the song, the lyrics are:
"Will you marry Abdullah, tell me my dear..."
Eventually towards the end of the record, we finally get a reply:
"Don't want Abdullah, I found another, I like his father better than him!"
Submitted by Darren S (109)
The track to get this record for is definitely "Desert Fantasy", with the "Cerrone's Paradise" bassline taken straight off Cerrone's track, but with accompanying arrangements that make an incredibly convincing, working end result. Even the vocals are similar to the high-pitched female vocals found on Cerrone's tracks. There's a shorter (around 7 min.) version out there, which is really nicely arranged too, but I haven't found it yet (might be a recent mix for CD).
"Nights of Roses" sounds like a mere interlude, but is beautiful nonetheless.
"Abdullah's Wedding" is a silly track with a mix of arabic and jewish influences, that really sounds stupid at first, but which I quite enjoy listening to now.