N°24 ALMANA SHCHORA - THE ESCAPE

An Israeli heavy metal band founded in 1991 and, although only the lead singer, Eli Zulta, is the only surviver of the original band they're still performing. They had some trouble during the years though. Eli wrote most of the songs and lyrics in the early years but Assi Hason was the lead singer when they started playing. 

The year after being founded Almana Shchora recorded their first album though these songs and album was never to be released. Instead they started over in 1994 releasing the first newly recorded song called Look Into My Eyes. This song also never made to any further albums Eli and his crew would create. The band switched record labels and started back from scratch to finally annouce the birth of "Almana Shchora" in 1997. The album never made it into the charts but it got the band a huge amount of intrest in the Israeli heavy metal scene and thus a lot of gigs. A year later two founding members would quit but Almana Shchora would keep touring across the country hiring new band members to fill in the gaps. Another year later they would also loose their lead singer Assi Hason.

Eli found three new band members to re-founded the band and in 2003 they started to write new material in hopes of releasing a complete new album. Also this release would become problematic when they had to replace the drummer in the process. They decided to release a few songs for the fans while they had to wait for the complete new album. They released The Enemy in 2005 and another single called It's War Time in 2007. In 2008 Eli promissed his fans to finally release the album but more problems came up so only the song Blood Frogs saw the light. Then in 2010 they would finally be able to show the world the album Phantom Pain. This release was rewarded with a performance on Ozzy Osbourne's Ozzfest in Tel Aviv, Israël.

Oh yeah almost forgot to mention that Almana Shchora means Black Widow in Israeli language !

N°23 YAEL NAIM - PARIS

I had no suggestions from either one of my readers so I've chosen a song about one of the most romantic capitals in Europe: Paris. Maybe you don't like the very much because it's in Hebrew but then again you should have helped me find another one. Anyway I could have chosen a Paris Hilton song as well so I think this isn't a bad choice after all.

The song is in Hebrew because Yael Naim was born in Paris to Tunisian parents. At the age of 4 she moved to Israëln her Jewish home country where she spent the rest of her childhood and where she started to play the piano. During her teenagers years she started composing her own songs and after serving for the Israëlian Millitary for two years she started her own band called The Anti Collision. She's asked in Paris to sing at a benefit where she get's spotted by one of the biggest record labels: EMI.

EMI released her first album in 2001 'In a Mans Womb' and the following years she's being casted for musicals and soundtrack releases. A new album in 2007 calles after herself is an instant succes in France and Israël and win's the World Music Album Of The Year in 2008 in the French Victoires de la Musique award. She'd win a second award at the same contest 3 years later winning the Best Female Singer award. In between she got nominated a few times.

In January 2008 her song New Soul got released to support the MacAir Book; a utility created by Apple. The song caught world fame ending up in different billboards. It even reached number one in Belgium for 2 weeks.

Her third album was only released last year, in 2010 and was called She Was A Boy releasing the single Go To The River. It didn't make it to the Belgian Billboards but I'm sure it got picked up elsewhere.

She's inspired by the voice of Aretha Franklin and her piano interests developed after seeing the movie Beethoven (no not the movie with the dog !). She also had a little role in The Simpsons as the voice of the niece of an Israeli tour guide in the episode The Greatest Story Ever D'ohd.

The video is not the official shoot. It's a compilation of photo's taken by someone who visited Paris and combined it with Yael's lovely song and voice, Enjoy,