Flavour of the Year Too many cooks spoil the broth? Not when the British Council's Music Matbakh project brings together a diverse group of UK and Arabic musicians, as Abi Bliss discovers Take 14 young people and one token ‘veteran' of wildly varying backgrounds. Confine them in a small space somewhere in London and set them seemingly impossible tasks to tackle under the eye of the cameras. What will emerge at the end of the week? If you're picturing the kind of slanging matches, inane soundbites and shameless exhibitionism that comes with each series of Big Brother, then be thankful that Music Matbakh operates on a completely different level.

Today we are a group of friends and you can almost say we are a family,' says Jordanian singer-songwriter Ruba Saqr, who took part in the British Council-organised project between May and August this year. ‘Even though we have different temperaments, customs, belief systems and ideas of how the world should run, we have great respect for each other's space and personal choices.'

Organised by a team including the British Council's music adviser Leah Zakss and production agency Serious, Music Matbakh united musicians from Morocco , Egypt , Jordan , Syria , Lebanon and the UK . Receiving help and guidance from musical director Justin Adams, the artists collaborated on material for a series of concerts, both here and in their home countries.

‘Matbakh' is Arabic for ‘kitchen': an appropriate term not only because the musicians worked to a schedule so pressured that even Gordon Ramsay might find his store of expletives sorely stretched, but also because the project required ingredients as varied as rap, heavy metal, jazz, classical Arabic music and electronica to be blended into a new dish that would tempt audiences' tastebuds and not send them running for the door.

The musicians were initially recruited by each country's British Council offices. Applicants had to supply demos and media clippings and answer questions about their musical and career plans. This selection stage was where Justin Adams became involved. Currently serving as guitarist for ex-Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant and with a CV that includes collaborating with bassist Jah Wobble and production for Tuareg rock group Tinariwen as well as previous British Council projects, Adams helped select the applicants.

‘Although I've dabbled in Arabic sounds, rhythms and scales, I'm by no means an expert. But if I am an expert in anything, it's cross-fertilisation and unusual combinations,' he says. It was important, he explains, to reflect the true diversity of Arabic music, not just between each country, but within them: ‘The generation of Arabic musicians in their 20s are an internet generation, who are completely aware of what's going on. They know Metallica, they know Hendrix, they know what's going on in rap and they know their traditional music pretty well. They don't feel any more limited by where they happen to come from than I do. Ten or 15 years ago, it wasn't like that. There were rock bands in Egypt in the 70s, but not very many.'

As well as Ruba Saqr, the final line-up of musicians comprised violinist Mohamed Medhat and guitarist Ousso from Egypt; bassist Yacoub Said Abu Ghosh, singer Hiba Mansour and rapper RGB from Lebanon; oud player Issam Rafea and ney player Moslem Rahhal from Syria; singer Hicham Bajjou and MC Taufik Hazzeb (aka Bigg) from Morocco; electronic musician Skander Besbes and percussionist Lotfi Soua from Tunisia; and keyboard player Andrew McCormack and drummer Leo Taylor from the UK.
To help break the ice, each musician received profiles of the other participants and could listen to samples online. Although they had had a chance to ponder possible riffs, lyrics and ideas beforehand, when the group arrived in London on 5 May, that must have felt like scant preparation for a debut performance looming just seven days later.

Adams says of their first gathering, in The Premises Studios, ‘there were 15 musicians who had never met each other before and the objective was that we had a week to put a show together. So I gave a little speech saying, “We know this is a completely crazy situation and that you and I will have both spent years putting together a great band and working on material. We all know it's completely artificial, but we'll probably never be able to do anything like it again, so let's have a laugh”'. To help things along, he organised the musicians into two groups: vocalists and instrumentalists. Of the two rooms, one was designated ‘loud', with a drum kit and electric instruments; the other ‘quiet'. ‘I thought okay, I know young musicians, I know young drummers and bassists and guitarists and what they want to do is make a racket as soon as possible. So I had to allow them space for that, for a massive jam session to happen straight away. And at the same time we've got to get the quieter musicians together pretty quickly to do something there.'

Ruba Saqr is positive about this strategy: ‘The fun part was that moving between the two rooms was flexible. Almost all musicians taking part played two roles: In one room they would be basic developers of a song, where in the other room they would be called upon to add their touch to an already-developed tune by other musicians.' ‘From the very beginning, one thing we wanted to do was to stop it getting too compartmentalised. We tried to encourage the more traditional players to work with the rappers, to keep it interesting', Adams says.
Around 20 pieces of music were created and developed during the sessions, some based upon germs of existing lyrics or riffs but many created from scratch. Adams ' job involved being both the eyes and the ears of the project. ‘Justin had the hectic role of keeping us busy and that involved seeing that sometimes a few of us would feel they were out of the loop; he would put us right back in and he would also give tips on the direction of the pieces that we formed together', Saqr says.

‘He had a bit more experience, so you could trust him, and any questions about a particular song, he would have the final say,' Andrew McCormack adds. ‘So he was quite crucial, really.' Adams also had to arbitrate between the tensions that would inevitably arise when creative minds all pull in slightly different directions. McCormack again: ‘Someone would have an idea about the way it should be and someone would have a different idea and it would become, okay, what's the best way to go. That is quite stressful, trying to be diplomatic and obviously wanting the best results at the same time.'