Issam Hajali's group cut Oghneya in Beirut in 1978, with Ziad Rahbani writing the arrangements, and the result sits at a crossing point almost nobody else found: Arabic song meeting jazz, folk and Brazilian rhythm in the same breath. Baroque pop, psych-folk, bossa nova and MPB all surface, as if Arthur Verocai had spent a season in Beirut. It first went out on cassettes the band assembled themselves, cutting tape to length by hand because wartime shortages left nothing that fit. A vinyl pressing followed in 1979 on Ziad Rahbani's Zida label.