Nadah El Shazly & Elvin Brandhi Pollution Opera Neon Green Vinyl Edition

The buckshot marriage of UK avant shapeshifter Elvin Brandhi (Yeah You) and Cairean Nadah El Shazly - regarded, among many other things, for incendiary solo sides and jams with Sir Richard Bishop - was some four years in the making and forms an uncompromising purview on the dystopian state of it all. Seeded in a 2020 motorbike ride thru Cairo’s humid soot, then cultivated at Nyege Nyege’s Kampala studio, the 9-part album convulses a convincing “world-spew” take on their shared experiences that’s as ruggedly vital as it is riddled by moments of poignant pathos and idiosyncrasy. It recalls the wildest dreams of their Danse Noire label founder Aïsha Devi as it does the fractal discombobulations of 1127 and his smashed-prism take on Egyptian classical, achieving a psychedelically-charged, heightened state of worldly proprioception that plunges listeners deep into their shared imaginary space. Consider them psychopomps for the eschaton, as they draw on a plethora of disciplines to limn in oblique but certain terms a palpable terror, unsettled by romance and love, between their clash of classical harmony and internal catastrophe on ‘Pollute Bold’, and the gnawing strings of Rian Treanor collaborator Ocen James pulled into a polyrhythmic prayer on ‘Crisp Heart’. They use the sounds of a motorbike - endemic to both Cairo and Kampala - as a metaphor for a kinetic stage, connecting their journey from atonal avant-classical gore that recalls Diamanda Galas on ‘Attention!’, to a standout example of El Shazly channelling her Egyptian classical training in the polymetric tumult of ‘crî Me a River’. In sequence with the Arca-esque microtonal synth plumes of ‘Bite’, and dense, unrelenting evocation of terror to ‘Danse le Flou’, they convey a wild ride in the relatively safety and sanctuary of our own listening space, but in context of a thrilling postmodern opera. Heavy energies on this one, but not without some levity too. A bit of a contemporary classic in the making in this arena; a strong example of how the deconstructed club/experimental era has coagulated from its fully dissolved phase.