Crossing the ranges

Natacha Atlas.

Natacha Atlas prefers to let her Facebook page do the talking. On there you will find postings about "things I think people really need to see".

Things like Zeitgeist, The Movie - in short, a film exploring social corruption and what's in store for humanity.

"In fact," says the Anglo-Egyptian singer, who visits next month for World of Music and Dance (Womad), "I say it is essential for mankind's evolution and survival that you watch the Zeitgeist movie and share this information with as many people as you can."

She's not being difficult or rude, it's just that she genuinely struggles to express her thoughts about her music that has covered many different styles - from traditional Arabian music, to world fusion, to drum 'n' bass - since the early '90s.

She released her 1995 debut solo album, Diaspora, but many were turned on to this exotic woman with a vast vocal range from her work with British electronica outfit Transglobal Underground, also in the mid '90s.

"But", she says with a raspy giggle, "I don't talk about myself. I don't like to talk about my music much. I like to talk about other things that are far more important."

Take her response to the fact Transglobal Underground's excellent Psychic Karaoke still stands up today. "I don't know because I haven't heard it in ages," she says with another laugh.

And she's hesitant when explaining why she's such a versatile vocalist.

"Possibly because I have a duality that gives me a slight advantage in the sense that I have a foot in both territories - the West and the Middle East - so maybe that gives me an extra door to go through to draw influence from. Maybe ..."

The 44-year-old was born in Belgium, to a father with Egyptian heritage, a British mum, speaks fluent French, Spanish, Arabic and English, and calls her herself "a human Gaza strip", which reflects not only her heritage but her diverse musical approach.

Of the recent conflict in Gaza she simply says it's upsetting.

"But," sensing the chance for one of her rants, as she refers to them, "I would like to see some very big artists, like Coldplay and Madonna, do a big relief concert for the children of Gaza. Like Bob Geldof did for Africa. But do you know who I think the true terrorists are? Not those ones that people think they are, the true terrorists are the ones wearing $US5000 (NZ$10,000) suits and working in the highest positions of finance, politics and business."

Back to the music.

Her latest album, Ana Hina, is a tribute to the "golden era" of Arabic music during the late '50s and early '60s, when she says cities like Cairo and Beirut were "the Paris of the Middle East".

"They were very cosmopolitan. It was influenced by Hollywood; that was the golden era of movies, and you never saw any women wearing veils. It was a really exciting place to be at the time, and Egypt was at the core of arts and media, so the rest of the Middle East was very influenced by what was going on in Egypt.

"It wasn't so repressed, and there was a sense of more freedom at the time and more creative expression, but with dignity and graceful nobility, and with a freedom of expression that is more restricted now."