Anouar Brahem’s oud playing is expressive, entrancing and beautyful. It’s so moving and anthemic it’s hard to believe any listener wouldn’t be frequently overwhelmed by Brahem’s brilliance. While one can debate whether Brahem’s music should be considered jazz or world or some hybrid of the two, there’s no denying the songs on Astrakan Café rank among the most lyrical and elegant in any genre. Brahem blends elements of traditional Arab and Islamic religious and popular music with just a slight nod to the American improvising tradition. ... Barbaros Erköse, on clarinet, and Lassad Hosni, on percussive instruments bendir and darbouka, prove equally exciting players.
Ron Wynn, Jazztimes

It's a fearsomely powerful album, unremitting in terms of its virtuosity and almost puritanical intensity of sound. All through their meanderings these three musicians rely solely on their instruments to recreate the required mood and sense of place. There are no vocals, samples or guest musicians to disturb their meditative focus. The music delineates the mournful beauty of a desert landscape from a myriad different angles. Brahem takes the torch from the late, great oud master Munir Bachir and makes sure that it continues to burn brightly and vividly.
Andy Morgan, Songlines

An exemplary instrumentalist, the 44-year-old Tunesian oudist leads an improvising trio through a dozen sublimely wrought original compositions and two adaptations of classic themes on his sixth recording for ECM. Throughout the disc, Brahem’s sound is striking in its immediacy and lack of pretense, despite its exoticism. ... Brahem’s fingers are steady, sure, and sensitive, plucking his 12 strings delicately over the hardwood soundbox of his fretless instrument. Dark melodies bead up, entwine with Turkish clarinettist Barbaros Erköses’s throaty, mid- and low-register beckonings, and are carried along or accented by Lassad Hosni’s nimble hand-drumming. The separate parts and ensemble wholes are impassioned yet elegant, melancholy almost to desolation, rarely flashing joy. This is music of discipline and deliberation as well as inspiration. It might find verbal equivalence in a lyric poem, a persuasive metaphysical argument, or a simple, sensual sigh.
Howard Mandel, Jazziz

Anouar Brahem, der berühmte tunesische Lyriker auf dem Oud, sein Landsmann, der Perkussionist Lassad Hosni und der türkische Klarinettist Barbaros Erköse bewegen sich mit großer Sensibilität und kreativer Kompetenz im Feld arabischer und islamischer Musik, das weit über den mediterranen Raum hinausreicht. Ein meditativer Musikkosmos zwischen Europa, dem Orient und Asien tut sich auf, der einen gefangen nimmt und dem man sich kaum entziehen kann.
Johannes Anders, Jazz'n'More

Le trio d’Anouar Brahem nous fait voyager dans le temps et dans l’espace, dans ces contrées heureuses où le oud est roi ; des grandes cours de l’Empire ottoman aux jardins parfumés del’Andalousie ; du fin fond de l’Azerbaidjan aux terrasses d’Halfaouine, à Tunis ; du coucher de soleil à Dar es-Salaam à une aube rouge à Grozny. Portées par toutes les riches harmoniques que la musique arabe a fécondées, les compositions d’Anouar Brahem sont d’une légèreté exquise.
Tewfik Hakem, Télérama

Maîtrise instrumentale de chaque intervenant, intense écoute mutuelle, compositions superbes, richesses des atmosphères, parti pris de la sobriété et de l’intériorité, tout converge vers une magnificence totalement dépourvue d’apparat, une poésie existentielle.
Fara C., Jazzman