Tim, TW, and I did in fact make it to The Baltic Room for Cheb i Sabbah’s show. Wow. I can’t believe I was considering not going.

Never have I seen a DJ perform who was more “trance state” oriented. Not trance like rave music trance (those of you who know me know my aversion of psytrance), but trance as in altered state with out one drink, without a single bong rip. Trance as in you can feel the energy of the room pulse through your eyelashes. Trance as in you forget that you’re at a styley uptown club and start dancing like nobody’s watching. Trance as in you’ve been dancing for an hour and a half before realizing you are thirsty and maybe your neck hurts from tossing your body around so hard. Now THAT’S a trance. It was fantastic, and my only wish was that the fiber optic stars that twinkle from the ceiling of The Baltic Room were real…I wish I’d been breaking it down in the Cascade Mountains, instead of some Capital Hill hipster-club.

The crowd was deliciously diverse. Yes, the standard scenesters were there, smirking under their geek-chic glasses into their expensive cocktails or tastefully trashy cheap beers. But there was also a great representation of aging folks–like the hippy couple in their mid-50s spinning in front of me, or the overweight woman who squealed “You’ve been to India?! God I miss India!” when she heard TW comment about recognizing one of the chants Chebi played–and there were also a fair amount of Indian and Arabic peoples there. Since Chebi is from Algeria, he’s got a fantastic following.

Anyway, the music. Oh dear lord. If you want a taste of it, listen here. Listen all the way through. I just love how he can go from traditional eastern chanting with a breakbeat into old classics like “love like this before.” Funky, reverent, driving….phenomenal.