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Topic: The Arab Strap

	Arab (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18)
		During the 8th and 9th centuries, the Arabs (specifically the Umayyads, and later Abbasids) forged an empire whose borders touched southern France in the west, China in the east, Asia Minor in the north, and the Sudan in the south.
		Arab nationalism declares that Arabs are united in a shared history, culture and language.
		Arabs are first mentioned in writing in an Assyrian inscription of 853 BC, where Shalmaneser III lists a King Gindibu of matu arbaai (Arab land) as among the people he defeated at the Battle of Karkar.
	hallencyclopedia.com /Arab (1184 words)

	Arab Strap - Epitonic.com: Hi Quality Free and Legal MP3 Music (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18)
		Later that year, Arab Strap released the Cherubs EP and the Elephant Shoe LP in short succession (all three recordings were later licensed to New York-based Jetset Records for U.S. release).
		Arab Strap's The Red Thread begins similarly to past releases with the slow/surly/sparse/sexual "Amor Veneris." Then from the second track forward, The Red Thread far surpasses their previous work, because it is anchored to an array of sparse drum machine techniques ranging from reverbed downtempo to danceable electro.
		Arab Strap's Scottish gloom has always been hypnotic and remarkably powerful due to the group's tasteful and diverse instrumentation, meandering arrangements, and a sense of imagery and storytelling of the sort found only in the best songwriters.
	www.epitonic.com /artists/arabstrap.html (993 words)

	Arab Strap -- Facts, Info, and Encyclopedia article (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18)
		An arab strap is a sexual device usually made of leather and a metal ring that is fastened or cinched around a human male's genitalia.
		Arab Strap's marked characteristics include snide, rather sordid lyrics -- described by the as "fly on the duvet vignettes" and a brooding, spare sound.
		Moffat records as a solo artist under the name (additional info and facts about Lucky Pierre) Lucky Pierre, with this work also characterised by brooding, spare sound but is instrumental in nature.
	www.absoluteastronomy.com /encyclopedia/a/ar/arab_strap.htm (147 words)

	Splendid E-zine reviews: Arab Strap
		Though it is perhaps Arab Strap's best and most interesting record yet, The Red Thread shows the limitations any artist will face when presenting a stance that seems destined for moral crisis ("And on the way over I swore to myself/ I'd fuck whoever I please"), but never achieves one.
		In Arab Strap's case, Malcolm Middletown and Aidan Moffatt's vocals seem too deliberately sleepy to give weight to the desires -- to make a woman once more become part of the scenery, or to acquire "a world of opportunity" by completely dissolving a relationship -- and inevitable, if mild, consequences that drive their songs.
		In a rewrite of a classic Animal House sequence, Arab Strap's songs would have the angel yawning as the devil yells for the frat kid to "fuck her".
	www.splendidezine.com /reviews/apr-30-01/arab.html (454 words)

	Amazon.com: Elephant Shoe: Music (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18)
		Arab Strap sometimes festers too long in slow songs that don't do too much.
		Arab Strap is a bit trip-hop, but the music and vocals have more of a rock tinge (usually trip-hop vocals and backgrounds rely on jazz patterns).
		arab strap are often criticized for being in an artistic rut, playing out the same tired, slo-fi depressing tunes ad nauseum...these critics have missed the boat entirely...the strap is actually feverishly (and endlessly) creative within the boundaries (yes, all good art should have boundries!) of their style...
	www.amazon.com /exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00004TKRX?v=glance (1303 words)

	Arab Strap - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Arab strap (sexual device), a contraption used to help a man retain an erection during sexual intercourse
		Arab Strap (band), a post-folk indie band from Falkirk.
		This is a disambiguation page — a list of articles associated with the same title.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Arab_Strap (90 words)

	The History of Rock Music. Arab Strap: biography, discography, reviews, links
		Arab Strap is a duo from Scotland that writes extremely intimate (and often brutal) songs, with a manic emphasis on self-loathing, and performs them in "lo-fi" musical settings.
		Arab Strap e` un duo scozzese che scrive canzoni estremamente personali (e spesso brutali) e le esegue in uno stile "lo-fi".
		Arab Strap's backing vocalist Adele Bethel and drummer David Gow formed Sons & Daughters and recorded the EP The Lovers (2002) and the mini-album Love the Cup (Ba Da Ding, 2003), an innovative work in the folk-rock vein.
	www.scaruffi.com /vol6/arabstra.html (1651 words)

	Arab Strap: Monday at the Hug & Pint: Pitchfork Review (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18)
		Only The Pogues invite more and lazier booze analogies than Arab Strap, so I won't insult your intelligence by forestalling mine: if their career is the musical equivalent of an alcoholic life-- and in all likelihood it is-- Monday at the Hug & Pint is Arab Strap's moment of clarity.
		Arab Strap enjoyed undue praise for their intrinsic gait, their hollow tunes profiting from the same sheepish Anglophilia that made Irvine Welsh and Belle & Sebastian household names in America, where they can barely tell Scots from Cockney.
		Sigur Rós recently managed it, and Arab Strap one-up them with the dividing "Loch Leven", a tune that's structurally typical of the band, but rises above the shirking, impatient post-rock folk of old in its more deliberate craft and inspired performance.
	www.pitchforkmedia.com /record-reviews/a/arab-strap/monday-at-the-hug-and-pint.shtml (664 words)

	* Dusted Reviews - Arab Strap *
		Scots are famous for their industry, and Arab Strap have worked harder then any band to document the intricacies of that filthy, despicable thing known as life.
		Whereas many bands are content to provide the background for dreams and alternate worlds, Arab Strap is determined to force its listeners to dwell in a grounded reality that defies escape and progress because the same disappointments happen over and over again.
		Perhaps it was their way of lauding the Pogues’ innovations and desire to be relevant in a contemporary context — some of the stereotypes of what it meant to be Irish might have persisted with the Pogues, but they were conveyed in a way that made the fellow bearers of those stereotypes proud.
	www.dustedmagazine.com /reviews/710 (1186 words)

	Splendid: Features: Arab Strap
		Malcolm Middleton and Aidan Moffat, better known as Arab Strap, were on the path to rock stardom.
		Over the next several years Arab Strap released five albums that continued to impress the critics, as well as their peers; Mogwai recorded a song called "Waltz for Aidan" and Belle and Sebastian named an album The Boy With the Arab Strap.
		Drop in on Matador Records, Arab Strap's US label -- or visit Chemikal Underground, their European label.
	www.splendidezine.com /features/arab (2799 words)

	Matador Records \| Arab Strap
		While not entirely departing from Arab Strap's tried & tested equation of relationship-autopsies set to a disco beat, 'Mondays...' is so brutally focused, both lyrically and musically, that this might as well be the band's first album (and we mean that in a good way).
		In addition to releasing the (old) new Arab Strap record (‘Elephant Shoe’) in North America on June 6th, Jetset is also releasing the live record that proceeded it, ‘Mad For Sadness,’ on July 4th.
		If that wasn’t thrilling enough, Arab Strap have returned to the label that brought them to worldwide prominence, Chemikal Underground, which is very happy news.
	www.matadorrecords.com /arab_strap (630 words)

	Arab Strap: Elephant Shoe (2000): Reviews
		Arab Strap's music is still fractured, Smog-like, and woefully beautiful.
		Arab Strap's depression is as addictive as their expression of it is alluring.
		What you're left with is Arab Strap bereft of any of their many pretensions, whittling down their art to the small pearls of truth that have underlined their whole career--love, hate, the blurred line between the two.
	www.metacritic.com /music/artists/arabstrap/elephantshoe (468 words)

	Arab Strap bios
		Philophobia LP/CD ARAB STRAP were formed by longtime pals Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton in the summer of '95 in Falkirk, Scotland.
		Philophobia is ARAB STRAP's second album, and their first US release.
		ARAB STRAP have created perfect music to accompany the post-rave comedown.
	www.matador.recs.com /bios/bio_arab.html (281 words)

	Amazon.com: The Boy With the Arab Strap: Music (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18)
		The Boy with the Arab Strap is an immediately infectious and delicious pastiche of fey, Nick Drake-ian vocals; lilting pop melodies; shimmery arrangements; croony wonder; and tortured, lit-smart lyrics.
		The melancholy melodies of "Boy With the Arab Strap" show Belle and Sebastian at their peak, with their gently complex music and quietly restrained pop songs.
		Boy With the Arab Strap consists of fragile, whispered melodies that convey innocence, although the lyrics suggest something else entirely (the opening lyric is "He had a stroke at the age of 24...", for God's sake!).
	www.amazon.com /exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00000AFHM?v=glance (1918 words)

	Arab Strap: The Red Thread: Pitchfork Review (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18)
		Arab Strap, however, leaning heavily on their emotional S&M routine, are bound to run out of tricks sooner than later.
		The album's first UK single, "Love Detective," about a guy waiting for his lover to leave for work so he can open up her red metal cashbox full of secrets, is typical of the band's strengths and weaknesses.
		Moffat, or at least the persona he assumes for Arab Strap, is damned to pushing the slippery boulder of emotional self-sabotage up the hill for all eternity like a Scottish Sisyphus, but also, so that we don't have to do it ourselves.
	www.pitchforkmedia.com /record-reviews/a/arab-strap/red-thread.shtml (707 words)

	Arab Strap, MP3 Music Download at eMusic
		The Scottish post-folk duo Arab Strap was formed in mid-1995 by vocalist Aidan Moffett and multi-instrumentalist Malcolm Middleton, longtime friends who after years of exchanging cassettes of their respective bands decided to finally begin collaborating together.
		Upon signing to the hip Chemikal Underground label, they issued their debut single, the stark, downcast "The First Big Weekend"; the song was a major critical hit, with Britain's Radio One declaring it the best record of the decade.
		In late 1996, Arab Strap issued their full-length debut, The Week Never Starts Round Here, followed a year later by the EP The Girls of Summer.
	www.emusic.com /artist/11486/11486195.html (244 words)

	Arab Strap (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18)
		The Scottish duo Arab Strap have exactly one lyrical subject, sexual anomie and ennui, and Philophobia finds lead mumbler Aiden Moffat going on about unhappy, guilty, drunken sex and its aftermath for more than an hour.
		He's a better-than-decent lyricist, and he gets off some snappy one-liners ("She was the best shag I'd ever had/That doesn't mean I'm saying, bedwise, you were bad"), but they almost all blur together in his depressive slur.
		You wouldn't put up with a friend's rambling on about his or her miserable sex life for this long, so there's no reason to put up with Moffat's doing the same.
	www.bostonphoenix.com /archive/music/98/07/16/OTR/ARAB_STRAP.html (206 words)

	Amazon.co.uk: Monday at the Hug & Pint: Music (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18)
		Habitually described as groggy, beer-stained romantics, Falkirk's Arab Strap seem unusually happy with the stereotype.
		Hence Monday at the Hug and Pint, their fifth album, is a concept of album of sorts, a selection of songs about love and alcohol and related miseries apparently beamed direct from a pub, The Hug and Pint.
		The second track is called, with the Strap's usual eloquent precision, Meanwhile, at the Bar, a Drunkard Muses.
	www.amazon.co.uk /exec/obidos/ASIN/B00008PRQY (905 words)

	Arab Strap
		Moffat’s vocals are thankfully less sprawling, and even the quiet numbers maintain a stirring sense of emptiness.
		Before, Arab Strap seemed to be wallowing in an alcoholic funk; now they’re letting you feel their pain.
		How well that pain translates to stage remains to be seen, but it’s probably safe to guess that the taps at the Khyber will be flowing.
	www.citypaper.net /articles/040501/cw.sixpick5.shtml (136 words)

	The Flavor
		I bought another Belle and Sebastien album, The Boy with the Arab Strap.
		According to the liner notes, an "Arab Strap" is a slang term for a device used to get reluctant horses to mate, now thats Final Jeopardy shit right there!!
		Musically, its very good to listen to, standouts include " is it wicked not to care?", "dirty dream number 2" and the title track.
	erloner.blogspot.com /2005/02/and-if-there-was-sequel-would-you-love.html (504 words)

	NOW: ARAB STRAP, Apr 24 - 30, 2003
		Beauty isn't a word you'd normally associate with miserable bastards like Arab Strap.
		The Scottish duo has made a career out of moaning eloquently about failed ambition and relationships that end in tears and a ball of fire.
		The beauty comes from multi-instrumentalist Malcolm Middleton, who expands the Strap's background noise to include waves of strings, bagpipes and proper pop songs.
	www.nowtoronto.com /issues/2003-04-24/music_discs.php (320 words)

	eBay - arab strap, Music Memorabilia, CDs items on eBay.com (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18)
		ARAB STRAP "the last romance" LP new sealed mogwai
		Arab Strap - The Last Romance Vinyl LP
		Arab Strap - The Shy Retirer EP - 6 tracks
	search-desc.ebay.com /search/search.dll?query=arab+strap&newu=1&krd=1 (511 words)

	Arab Strap Reviews
		Brooding, depressive, and morose, Arab Strap's music is surprisingly pretty despite itself: a dime-store drum machine thumps along in the most laconic way, a thick Scottish brogue intones drunkenly and lazily above it, and a smattering of keyboard sounds and purposeful guitar chordings fall in atop that.
		The songs are about all the nasty women who've hurt the two young men's tortured young hearts, and it gets to be a bit much after a full hour.
		There are glimpses of the reasons why these two Arab Strap boys get into so much trouble, through their plainspoken, mumbled tales of drunkenness and copulation, but too often, Philophobia is the musical equivalent of an unbearable hangover suffered after a lost weekend spent behaving very badly.
	www.iq451.com /music/arab-strap.htm (569 words)

	The Great Lost Arab Strap Album
		This little web site contains the archive of the Arab Strap album called "Coming Down", of which only 5 copies were made and given to close friends of the group.
		"It's Arab Strap by name only - Malcolm wasn't involved at the time, but we decided to use the name because we couldn't think of anything better."
		All Songs by Arab Strap, Except "The Love Theme from Star Wars" written by John Williams arranged by Arab Strap.
	www.noloveforned.com /arabstraparchive (145 words)

	Rhapsody Music: Download, Listen, Play & Burn Arab Strap
		This Scottish duo successfully combine stark, lonely spoken word elements with narcotic guitar and electronic backdrops.
		Imagine the Velvet Underground's "Murder Mystery" interpreted by fans of dub and Henry Miller.
		Click here to start listening to Arab Strap and thousands of other artists FREE for 14 days with Rhapsody Unlimited.
	www.real.com /dmm/rhapsody/artist/?artistid=5173 (96 words)

	Arab Strap
		Interviews, album and single reviews, live reviews, news and links for artists connected with the uk music alternative scene.
		An Arab Strap website with songs in Real Audio, discography, bio, links, lyrics, photos, reviews, tour dates, and videos.
		The ultimate resource for Arab Strap WWW links, CD's, biographies, homepages, contests, tour dates and sound samples.
	www.harmone.com /bands/a/arab_strap.html (115 words)

	Sponic Zine - Music Reviews - Arab Strap (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18)
		Relationships can seem miserable at one point or another.
		Arab Strap seems to capture that vibe--the week after a bad breakup.
		The Red Thread has been broken and broken down.
	www.sponiczine.com /review_detail.asp?wfArtist=Arab+Strap (84 words)

	Arab Strap > Media (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18)
		This page is host to various full-length audio and video files.
		Here you can watch all of Arab Strap's promo videos online or download high-quality versions to your computer.
		For more information on Arab Strap and their label-mates, visit www.chemikal.co.uk.
	www.arabstrap.co.uk /content/eng/media.html (201 words)

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