Nadah El Shazly Ahwar Black Vinyl Edition

Nawa Recordings are thrilled to announce the release of Ahwar , the debut album by
Nadah El Shazly, worldwide on 10 Nov 2017. Starting out singing Misfits covers in a
local punk band, then moving on to producing her own electronic tracks and making a
name for herself in Cairo's underground scene, Nadah El Shazly's backstory is not that
unusual. Her debut album on the other hand, is an entirely unexpected story.Two
years in the making, Ahwar (Arabic for marshlands) is an otherworldly record, not
unlike an abstract mythological story-tale. Opening with the mangled and filtered
vocals of the album's lead track Afqid Adh-Dhakira (I Lose Memory) like an alien
dream, the drones of a bowed double bass lead us into a drum groove that lays the
groundwork for El Shazly's sultry and captivating presence, singing: "(I am) coming,
from a time far away. Going, escaping. Alone in the wilderness".The Arabic prose
lingers over interjections of slap-back delayed guitar twangs and an avant-garde
arrangement of dissonant winds, horns and seemingly random drum fills, ending with
an eerie soundscape that wouldn't feel out of place in a Giallo classic. A daring and
potent statement that sets the foundations over which the rest of the album can
unravel. Composed, written and produced by El Shazly herself in collaboration with
The Dwarfs of East Agouza's Maurice Louca and Sam Shalabi on co-composition and
arrangement duties, the album was crafted across two continents, between Canada
and Egypt, and features the crème of Montreal's contemporary-classical and
improvised music scene, most of whom aremembers of Shalabi's own Land of Kush
ensemble. In between El Shazly's five original tracks, we are treated to an abstract
coverversion of Sayyid Darwish's classic Ana 'Ishiqt (I Once Loved). El Shazly's
haunting vocal floats over broken Kalimba and Harp arpeggios which slowly intertwine
with a free, bowed double bass improv to nestle within the breaks between Younes
Al-Qadhi's early 20th century verses of love and betrayal. More than that, it is difficult
to really describe, but imagine the worlds of Nico, Björk and Annette Peacock with
the Arabic language as their mother tongue, re-approached through acoustic avantjazz
harmony and re-constructed with a dash of Kamilya Jubran's modern styling of
Arabic maqam and you may be somewhere close. Recorded and delicately mixed
through miles of analogue cabling by Thierry Amar at Hotel2Tango and mastered by
Harris Newman at Grey Market Mastering in Montreal, the album is adorned with the
surrealist artwork of Egyptian artist Marwan El-Gamal and designed with custom
typography by Egyptian designer Valerie Arif . All editions come with dual-language
booklets featuring the lyrics in Arabic with English translation by Nariman Youssef .