Orchestrated music has to make you feel something. It’s got to take you to a particular place and time. While Nashaat Salman “Universal Melodies” makes you feel like you are in a bevy of places, you never get the thought that you’re somewhere special.
Although solidly crafted, these three songs (and one radio edit) lack the type of appeal that better known orchestrators the likes of Yanni and Hans Zimmer are known for. More like a solid try than something that feels full ad fresh, Salman’s EP is missing that “it” factor.
Of all of the three tracks, “Summer Night Joy” has the most potential as it weaves a Latin and Indian vibe beautifully together from beginning to end. Between the horns and sultry guitar lick, it quickly grabs your ears. It’s definitely a track you could expect to hear as the theme song of a Spanish soap opera or in a sexy scene in a Bollywood film. Had the two remaining tracks “Dancing Star” and “Chasing” tried to fuse more sounds together and experiment, this EP could have ended up much different.
Although it tries to play with its sounds with the Asian-sounding opener, “Dancing Star” lacks the polish of “Summer Night Joy.” The same can be said for “Chasing,” which does have a cool ’80s synth feel to it, but without any context, feels flat. Regardless, this is a track that could definitely find its way into a battle scene of an Anime or Japanese role playing game.
Simply put, by the end of these three tracks, it’s hard to know what to think. This is a musician with talent, known for his work on radio and TV, trying to create music that has a touch more “soul” and brevity, but in the end it’s more of the same. The type of music you’d hear in an elevator or a pharmacy, it, away from “Summer Night Joy” doesn’t evoke any type of feeling. That’s not to say it’s poorly crafted, it just doesn’t exude heart. It needs more context.
And that’s why regardless of what you are away from this EP, its impossible not to see that Salman’s work is best served beside something else (a film for instance) than all by itself.
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