A few weeks ago we wrote about ‘Khafif Khafif’, a single from the forthcoming record Nozhet El Nofous by Egyptian multi-instrumentalist Nancy Mounir, which comes out next month on Simsara Records. The track “highlight[ed] the blend of haunting emotion and steely defiance which underpins Mounir’s work,” we wrote, a blend which captures the album as a whole. Described as “a remarkable communion with ghosts,” the record serves as a conversation between Mounir and an older generation of Egyptian performers. Singers who appear on these songs via archival recordings, their words every bit as sorrowful and fierce and brash, introduced into Mounir’s ambient soundscapes and resurrected as something new. ‘Promenade of the Souls’ is how the title translates, and the album is exactly that.
Latest single ‘Ana Bas Saktalak’ sees Nancy Mounir utilise Theremin and violin to support the vocals of Fatma Serry, conjuring a world both eerie and stark. An atmosphere fitting for Serry’s alluringly vengeful words. “Your day will come,” she sings. “You’ll beg for us to reunite but I will refuse,” an unforgiving spirit roused from its place in the past, her fury no less fervent or searing.
Nozhet El Nofous is out on the 3rd June via Simsara Records and you can get it from Bandcamp.
Photo by Eslam Abd El Salam