Next up on Lee Gamble‘s UIQ imprint is an album from Lebanese musician Mhamad Safa.
Safa is a musician, architect, and researcher based between London and Beirut. Through his work, which focuses on multi-scalar spatial conditions and their sonic make-ups, he explores the aural legacies of traditional and subcultural practices.
Ibtihalat, his debut album, is a “throbbing summoning of an otherworldly force” constructed in the face of “geographic calamities and contingencies.” It draws inspiration from the musical traditions of the Gnawa population in north Africa and introduces novel processes of musical synthesis using predictive algorithms, accents, and polyrhythms within beat-based compositions, each of which is inaccessible through dominant tools in music production.
We’re told that the results are “heavily percussive and rhythmically odd interventions,” that can be repurposed as “speculative experimentations on the futures of dance culture.”
Tracklisting
01. Terminus Messao
02. Supranomadic
03. Liturgies For Cyborgs
04. Bel Abbes
05. Proto—Ismael
06. Hydrobenediction
07. Ouda And The Strikers At Najd
08. Fugues
09. Gazelles
10. Coastal Worship
Ibtihalat LP is scheduled for April 29 release. Meanwhile, you can stream “Bel Abbes” in full via the player below.
