by TootArd (Glitterbeat Records, GB 054 CD, LP and digital)
According to the UN, having a nationality – and all that flows from that, including a legal identity and a passport – is a human right. Tell that to Israel. In the occupied Golan Heights there are many people living without this status. The young men who make up TootArd (Arabic for ‘strawberries’) are some of them. Laissez Passer, the band’s second album, is, simultaneously, a statement of political reality in the Golan Druze town of Majdal Shams, and an indication that groove-wise, at least, TootArd are going places.
