Nashazphone Downbeat | Electronica | Leftfield 12 Items

Sam Shalabi - best known for playing in Land of Kush and Praed Orchestra!, and collaborating with Oren Ambarchi, Mark Fell and Alan Bishop - fuses synthpop and sound poetry on this utterly crackpot set featuring Eric Chenaux and Nadah El-Shazly.

Sam Shalabi has been active for decades now, working first in the late 1970s in punk bands before recording with Montréal's Swamp Circuit in the 1990s. He's performed extensively with Constellation's network of artists (from Fly Pan Am to A Silver Mt. Zion) and formed a litany of his own outfits, including Shalabi Effect and Land of Kush, but here his scope is markedly slimmed down, giving him the opportunity to once again work on an exploratory, instinctive agenda.

His sounds here are freeform and unpredictable, swerving from Daniel Johnston-esque pop to processed electronics and spooky elevator music. Nadah El-Shazly deadpans over plastique synth strings on the opening side of "Shirk". Her commentary is firmly tongue in cheek ("I'll finally be able to walk like an Egyptian") and adds a lightheartedness to Shalabi's surrealist pop experiments. On the flipside, surreal vocals are played against laptop and foley sounds, while chipmunked poetry is layered over synapse-swallowing sine wave wails. The entire composition builds towards an explosion of ring modulated pop that sounds as if the 1980s pop scene crashed into a hallucinatory wall.

There's not much out there as oddly particular, studied and uncompromisingly absurd as this - which is in itself high praise.

Amon is the alias of Andrea Marutti, practitioner of elemental ambient and tape music since the early
1990s. Among his decades of work, his self-titled 1996 album, here retitled as ‘Akh’, stands out for his
almost mystical grasp of reverberant acoustics that hark back to prehistoric caves and spaces. Amon really
gets inside his thing with literal, non musical inspiration from the mysteries and rites of ancient Egypt,
factored by the esoteric writings of Peter Kolosimo and a movement of so-called “pseudo-archaeology” that
guides and elevates his work in the imagination. It’s frankly terrifying gear, tempered by a slow-burning,
introspective quality that invites the listener to succumb to its meditative formations.
Best consumed in the depths of night, the album takes on a vividly transportive nature. Over 90 minutes, it
arcs from the Thomas Köner-esque tonalities of Regula #1’, to the subharmonic shadows of ‘Hiram Roi’, via the
glowering ‘Darkside Return’ and into the chasmic phasing of ‘Wasted’. There’s little in the way of light creeping
through, but Marutti’s occasional use of harmony is startling ‘Uhura Photons’ dense and suffocating noise
eventually splits into a near choral synthscape, and on ‘Mopula’ you can just about pick up on the irregular
harmony of each central note. On ‘She Touched The Stone’, we end with beautiful, chiming pads and bells
echoing from deep below, an experience not unlike hearing Bohren and Der Club of Gore’s billowing melodies
seep through a dense cloud of smoke.

Experimental enigma 1127 fuses grime and hard techno into early 20th Century Egyptian music on his outstanding second album for Cairo’s Nashazphone label, building a wall of floury, computerised noise that relentlessly pushes the dancefloor into the backroom, and the backroom towards the rally. Breathtaking, mind-altering gear, essential listening for fans of Mutamassik, Autechre, Kelman Duran, Nkisi, even James Ferraro.

The fifteenth letter of the Arabic alphabet, ض (ḍād) is one of only six letters that were added to the Phoenician alphabet to construct the language. It exists only in Arabic, and is notoriously difficult for non-native speakers to pronounce. As such, it's a fitting title for 1127's mystifying second album, a profound expression that challenges us to look beyond the aesthetic and unravel a knotty collage of influences and innovation.

On his acclaimed 2019 debut ’Tqaseem Mqamat El Haram’, 1127 delivered a shock to experimental electronic club musicks that snagged everyone from Rat Heart to Rabit and Elvin Brandhi with fractal decimations of Egyptian rave and street noise. On this new one, he simmers it down through reticulated junglist and trap modes, whilst crucially retaining a hallucinatory sense of chaos reflective of modern day Giza. With contributions from a whole bunch of collaborators including Minusdesire, Caironomixx, Emna Mâaref - plus many others, he deploys fractured melodies, voices and robust club structures at once distinctly recalling Mutamassik’s millennium-era fusions, with a crucial quota of controlled madness that 1127 can safely call his own.

There are traces of Autechre's latter-day autogenic reveries on 'hyperfals(E)xoteric@iro', sweeping up thunderous, asynchronous percussion in brisk sonic winds, folding in oud-like electronic plucks to illuminate unconventional commonalities and shared narratives between future / primitive practice. On '1446' he uses a heavy-footed drum battery, burying drill-warped subs and almost invisible vocals in a disheveled mix, shepherding us towards 'iii اعيش في جلباب ابي Lenn', a disco-baked headmelter that takes the language of French touch and uses it to carve new shapes into deconstructed Egyptian pop. On the Caretaker-referencing ‘complexity induced amnesia’, he creates a smoky aura, dissolving the rhythm and trace vocals into unstable FX-corroded loops, designed to melt the memory banks.

With thanks to Rashad Becker’s faithful vinyl master that presents the music with all its burred edges, pressure drops, and textures in tact, ‘ض’ is an absolute must check for anyone bitten by the unstoppable sprawl and refraction of traditional club and experimental musicks into new dimensions.

Paris Noise chiefs, SISTER IODINE, return with “Hollozone”. Their seventh album and second on
Nashazphone following the 2018’s Double Album, “Venom”.
Erik Minkkinen, Lionel Fernandez, and Nicolas Mazet have represented the cutting edge and
vanguard of French Noise since the nineties and yet remain as radical and uncompromising
as ever. With “Hollozone”, the group manages to confirm the sound and spirit intensity which
perfectly embodies their unique world of controlled chaos.
It is with the advent of the 21st century - more than ever - that the decisive path of SISTER IODINE
has taken a fascinating route. From their debut album, ADN115, released in 1994 which was strongly
influenced by the original New York No Wave scene (Mars, DNA, Red Transistor) to their more
recent works which have been augmented by “newer poisons” such as Black Metal, or the most
abrasive end of Industrial Music and Power Electronics, or Experimental Electronics (Editions
Mego has reissued an extended version of “Flame Desastre” on CD), the band has managed to
survive through the decades, from the inhospitable French squats of the nineties to nowadays’
established venues and proper tours. Today, the band’s music has changed recipients and has
attracted younger generations with their organized radioactive chaos while never conceding
anything from their initial intensity. Over the years, SISTER IODINE would have also created their
own idiosyncratic language, for which sound exploration matters and pure beauty seem to count
as much as pure explosive ferocity, while intense violence and energy gets deployed in live shows.
The last few years witnessed an increasing number of collaborations such as the recent sessions
with Meyhna’ch (Mütiilation) or the ones with Masaya Nakahara (Violent Onsen Geisha / Hair
Stylistics). “Hollozone” offers a track featuring the vocal contribution of Stephen Bessac, the
deviant front man of the cult French hardcore band Kickback.
SISTER IODINE produces today a music that is actually unique and unheard anywhere else. One of
eternal youth and audacity.

A compilation of contemporary Italian tape electroacoustic and musique concrete artists featuring Valerio Tricoli, Mercury Hall, Ezio Piermattei, Sec_, Giovanni Lami, Giulio Nocera, kNN.

West Yorkshire’s peerless psych-noise unit Skullflower plant a thorny bouquet of beauties to conclude their first trilogy with Cairo's awesome, sprawling Nashazphone label.

Here revolving Matthew Bower & Samantha Davies, after decades of line-ups swirling Bower’s mast, Skullflower continue to reach other parts of the psych that others can only skim with ‘Ophidian Vibrations’. As characterised in the outstanding artwork, calliing to mind cave drawings as much as a frame from a Lynch nightmare, the duo extend an intuitively atavistic suite of work, uncoiling the metallic shred and banking atonal sheet noise of ‘Hrim’ for a transfixing 15 minute entrée.

The relatively shorter ‘Krim’ swims on the mind’s eye with a fractal patina of iridescent, lysergic textures as a fine palate cleanser, before ’Hum’ plunges us back into a dense overgrowth of gorse-like deep greens and piquant yellow riddled with adders and biblical serpents forming a horizontal blanket of the lushest harmonic distortion.

Intense, electro-acoustic/concrète shadowplay by two masters of their craft, Matteo Castro & Riccardo Mazza aka Lettera 22; riddled with devilish detail certain to grip disciples of Italian horror scores, Valerio Tricoli, Jérôme Noetinger, Lionel Marchetti.

A phantasmagoric episode of intrigue and stuff from the foothills of the Italian Alps, ‘Exposition of Cloves’ portrays Lettera 22 at the peak of their powers. In quick, quick, slow, quick movements, the duo harness a typical array of tape-spliced concrète sampledelia, analog instrumentation, and deft electro-acoustic process, to create spidery webs of texture sound and a sense of space that leads one to constantly look over their shoulder.

The duo’s Nashazphone debut is a significant marker in a catalogue stretching over a decade, executed with a fleeting, dreamlike illusiveness that speaks to their increased familiarity with each other’s creative nature and techniques.

Hailing from a picturesque and historic region of north east Italy, riddled by ravines and sleepy villages, where the Alps slope to the Venetian Lagoon and the Adriatic Sea; Lettera 22’s work has long reflected their locale with a timeless yet contemporary sense of psychodrama where the horrors of the mid C.20th linger as palpably as last night’s spider webs in the street. ‘Exposition of Cloves’ yields the most hauntingly sensorial immersion in their stylized arcana, making up for a notable lack of work since 2016 with newfound relish for their form.

In five fleeting parts they render an uncannily tangible reading of their landscape and inner worlds that feels like flashbacks thru half a millennia of world explorers bringing home exotic spices and their unprecedented sensations, thru to difficult periods of contemporary politics, and the embrace of new artforms such as concrète and electro-acoustic musick, that express the palimpsest of myth, folklore, horror stories embedded in the streets, the hills and themselves.

A central iconic figure in the ever thickening Cairo underground electronic scene, Zuli has crossed borders years ago with a relentless international touring schedule and releases on Lee Gamble's UIQ as well as Haunter Records, now considered as flagship works.

His meticulously crafted sound, located at the crossroads of IDM, Hip-Hop, Jungle and more has never stopped developing. It is characterized by power, precision and very elaborate arrangements.

»Digla Dive - Live« is an additional step further in his extended quest where Studio compositions are constructed in a live setup spirit.

Produced, mixed and recorded live at home in 2022 by Zuli. Vocals by Elvin Brandhi and Rhythms by Karim El Ghazoly on Alteration Jump. Zuli logo by Kareem Lotfy.

Brutally anxious and sensitive noise techno tribute to underground comic artist Mark Beyer, shredding noise harmonics and ragged-out techno pulses for fans of Merzbow, Russell Haswell, Eva Justka, Astral Social Club. Savage noise tekno psychosis from Valerie Smith, a hairy man from Paris who also makes music as Z.B. Aids, here paying dues to the bleak underground ‘80s comics of Mark Beyer for a fierce debut with vital Algerian/Egyptian label, Nashazphone. ‘We’re Depressed’ acknowledges a severely modern sense of anxiety in torrents of bilgy rhythmic noise that pumps in a vein of esoteric activity linking Pat Murano’s Decimus to Ewa Justka, to Masami Akita and Sun Ra. Burned out dance pulses rev into murky warehouse space, delivered with a hands-on style that feels as uncannily descriptive as Mark Beyer’s often wordless comic strips’ approach to a world of emotional bleakness and naive beauty.

The unmissable, head-twisting debut LP by Cairo’s 1127 returns on red vinyl pressing for those who missed its shockwaves for the first time back in summer 2019, Huge recommendation if you’re into Autechre, Arca, Crowww, Rabit... Getting right under the skin with its hugely variegated palette of brutalist, rhythmic power electronics and evocative location recordings, ‘Tqaseem Mqamat El Haram 2016-2019’ resembles something like a soundtrack to a Neil Blomkamp flick set it Cario, Egypt, 2050 where stifling heat and pollution means everyone wears breathing apparatus and hover cars sputter about its dusty sprawl. It’s surely one of the most shocking and transfixing sides from North Africa this side of the debut LPs by 1127’s peers, Myslma and Zuli, and should be prized by anyone with an ear for futurist rhythms and microtonal synths of a modern, Afro-futurist order. Comprising collaged chunks from 1127’s archive arranged in a seamless, diffracted flow that recalls Autechre as well as the mutant adjuncts in Arca’s &&&& or Croww’s ‘Prosthetics MechaMix’, the results feel as though scraped from the insides of 1127’s skull, capturing and rendering the sounds of Cairo street raves ricocheting with spasms of gristly noise, strafing into pockets of cutthroat flashcore and dropping out into smoky, intimate scenes of Arabic dialogue, all threaded together with a distinctive taste for metallic microtonal synthlines and coruscating noise.

A solo project from Cairo underground fixture Youssef Abouzeid (aka Captain Solo and Yzeid), PanSTARRS is described as a "sensitive synthwave" project and comes across like a fluffed-up Suicide or an Arabic-language answer to Cold Cave.

Multi-instrumentalist, producer, effects pedal designer and the founder of Cairo's avant garde artspace and label Hizz, Youssef Abouzeid mutates into a new form on "Batee2", feeling his way thru a coarse set of reverb-drenched darkwave/no wave jams that nod to Suicide, Das Ding, and more modern proponents like Cold Cave and Lust For Youth. Singing in Arabic, Abouzeid avoids traditional song forms in favor of more punkish expressions, squealing forcefully over rolling analog synthesizers and blown-out drum machines.

PanSTARRS has been a prolific project for Abouzeid in Cairo, and his workshopping of these tracks has helped make the album feel completely coherent and unified. There's a distinct, hyper-saturated sound to each song that removes Abouzeid a step or so from his influences, giving him a space to work in that feels fertile and kinetic. It's a pleasure to absorb.

First time vinyl issue of a killer, impossibly rare document from NYC no wave pioneers Don King, the short-lived mid-'80s post-Mars band from Mark Cunningham, featuring Arto and Duncan Lindsay, Lucy Hamilton and John Erskine in their all-star lineup, on a hyper-sensual and humid, screwed Jazz tip.

Centred around two members of Mars - Lucy Hamilton and Mark Cunningham - renowned for featuring on Brian Eno’s legendary ‘No New York’ (1978) survey, as well as affiliates of Sonic Youth and Swans; Don King were a lesser known vehicle for the no wave rogues to follow their nose into the weirdo recesses of art-rock/free jazz that followed the rudimentary, DIY tenets of the original no wavers. The skronk quota is high on this one, but their performances are so much more sensual, humid and slower than the no wave bracket would suggest, revealing the band like some loose echo of Sun Ra or a spangled Arthur Russell jam with Peter Zummo in their performances surrendered from shows in Geneva, Lausanne, Toulouse, Barcelona, Padova and Parma, and first issued by Barcelona’s 4 Sellos label in 1987, in the years after their s/t debut and a 1985 single for Cabaret Voltaire’s Double Vision label.

The 10 pieces, room recorded in all locations, are replete with audience chatter in the air hovering through a brassy rabble in operation. Led by the twin trumpet and bass clarinet bleat of Mars’ Mark Cunningham and Lucy Hamilton, Sonic Youth producer John Erskine provides taped percussion tracks with backing from the Lindsays, and Toni Nogueira, as they roll out from the minimalist reps of ‘Fern Gully’ to a sonorous industrial tango, and Hamilton’s operatic wail on ‘Obsolescence’, taking in a skew of jazz standard ’Summertime’, fraying into proper no wave shred and racket on ‘Mediterrain’, and like a punk Sun Ra in ‘Don Rey’, reminding us of Alex Zhang Hungtai’s recent foray into voice-note recorded spiritual, concrète jazz.