"Love Needs You" by Chantal Chamandy

a Review by Amy Lotsberg Producer of Collected Sounds

First of all, how gorgeous is Chantal Chamandy? Wow. Those eyes. *shudder

Happily, the music is an intense and beautiful as the artist.

As you might guess, this music has a Middle Eastern/Mediterranean feel to it. The music actually "looks" like the cover art. I don't know if that makes sense to anyone but me, but sometimes music has color when I hear it. And this one sounds just like the art looks. This is one instance where you can "judge a book by its cover". If you like the art you'll probably like the music.

Let's talk about how talented Chantal Chamandy is. She wrote (or at least co-wrote) all the songs here except "Salma Ya Salama". She also arranged several of them and produced them all.

She is based in Montreal Canada, and has Egyptian, Lebanese and Greek heritage. She seems so fascinating to me. She speaks five languages (French being her first).

Because this is a Canadian release if you're in the US and planning on getting this CD it's considered an import and you'll pay dearly. But it's a long CD with 14 songs and if you like what you hear (try samples at Amazon) then I think it's worth it. (I also looked at Amazon.ca and it's even more expensive, go figure)

"Crazy" is a really intense song. It's almost spooky. I imagine a room full of women in veils dancing and waiving their arms around wildly. This one is my favorite.

She thanks 16 musicians in the liner notes. Together they do produce a very lush sound. You can tell a lot of work went into this production. It shows.

Posted on January 12, 2006