1127.0 Z

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.