Against The Day

Sam Shalabi is a musician and composer who has been creating and playing music in Montreal for the better part of 20 years. Unconstrained by genre, Sam's musical history spans rock, jazz, free music, punk, and most things in-between. For the past five or so years, Shalabi has also been writing and arranging sprawling compositions for large ensembles, the most recurring of which is Land Of Kush. Incorporating some 30 Montreal players and vocalists, Kush includes string, brass, woodwinds, guitar, and percussion sections, in addition to electronics and Shalabi's oud.

Constellation helped Sam bring the Land Of Kush orchestra into a studio environment to document a proper recording of the work. Gathering a group of extraordinary players as large and busy as this one should be a daunting task, yet Sam did it with ease, not because he's an organizational genius or is able to finally remunerate anyone, but because musicians genuinely want to work with him.