What are you after, Nadah El Shazly?

2023-04-20 08:00:00

« I believe that the idea, from the start, is to express oneself loud and clear explains Nadah El Shazly. An answer as a leitmotif for almost fifteen years of creation at the forefront of decompartmentalization. At seventeen, the young Nadah squatted the impressive Cairo metal scene of the 2000s, with a punk rock project covering the glorious Misfits: ” a great noise experience, noisy even, which allowed me to be able to express myself by shouting! Within this sprawling scene, we were tolerated during a few concerts. This scene also suffered a lot from the conservatives, when it was accused of perverting youth. Many concerts have been canceled, to the point that today this movement is extinct. »

After this experience in punk, ” which was still mainly recreational she recalls, Nadah was introduced to the production of electronic music: I started composing my own music in the course of the 2010s. It was around 2013 that I really started to take an interest in sound”. In 2016 she recorded Ahwar, her first album which was released the following year. This avant-garde opus oscillates between progressive rock, free-jazz, sticky electronica and trip-hop, served by an absolutely poisonous song, as well as many pranks in the traditional Egyptian heritage. You have to listen to songs like ” Barzakh » or « Ana ‘Ishiqt to understand the strange bridge that Nadah builds between her Egyptian identity and her appetite for contemporary experimental layers.

Acclaimed by critics, this six titles will open the doors to European festivals, including the very specialized Guess Who, where she will perform in 2017. A festival of discoveries, in which the musician and producer will promote zãr, a ritual of elevation and possession that survives in Cairo: I discovered this cult in a place, the Makan, which in Cairo offers two performances of zãr per week.» Practiced by priestesses, and unfortunately on the way to extinction, the zãr is intimately linked to the Egyptian identity: « from the 1930s until the early 1980s, the zãr was practiced in many homes in Cairo, for its healing functions explains the singer. ” My grandfather told me that he saw as a child, behind the half-closed doors of his house, how his aunt danced frantically with other women, and how he was hypnotized by the drums and their singing. »

Blessed bread for an artist, whose trance and elevation through forms of improvisation and experimentation innervate creation: “For me, there is an obvious artistic link between punk, zãr and noise. These genres have nourished my journey, my sonic exploration. I hope that at the end of this odyssey, I would have managed to establish a place, a creative framework that resembles me. Like a place, able to contain all these influences »

Another stone, added to the sound structure of Nadah: the programming in 2020, of a line-up 100% dedicated to the Egyptian underground, concocted for the Nyege Nyege festival, online version. The opportunity for the artist to shed light on defectors from the Mahraganat scene as 3 Phaz, Ibrahim X or Yunis and to set up a creative residency with Freya Edmondes in Kampala.

Producer, improviser, known for her solo performances or within the pop duo Yeah You, which she formed with her father and whose mission is to make music. anywhere and anytime » the Welsh Freya, known under the pseudonym of Elvin Brandhi is the perfect creative alter ego of Nadah, camped on the other side of the Mediterranean: « it was in Kampala, Uganda that we laid the foundations for a four-handed collaboration explains Nadah. Baptized Pollution Opera, this creation finds its roots in Egypt: when we first met in Egypt, we rode a lot of motorbikes with Freya recalls Nadah. ” We then spent our time singing, both of us, during these super noisy motorized trips. In Kampala we also drove a lot. The sound of the street, the engine, our two voices resting on all this sound material made us want to compose. We recorded ourselves a lot, we also filmed ourselves, and thus initiated the Pollution Opera project. »

A noisy ode to diesel, the explosion of machines, the roar of engines, songs and cries, Pollution Opera was presented for the first time in March 2023, at the Banlieues Bleues festival: “ I like the strange paradox, the oxymoron created by the coupling of these two antinomic words, pollution, and opera. We like the idea of ​​calling “opéra“ a sound creation made of recordings of the din of the street and its traffic jams. But not only elsewhere, since the sung parts are composed to resemble choirs, and the Dj Omar El-Sadek is also on stage to play a live video. »

For Nadah, « improvisation is liberating. It allows you to access sounds, sensations, emotions that you never imagined. It opens new doors, new sound experiences. And Arab music is extremely linked to improvisation. Some pieces of this heritage can last the time of an entire concert, the rest is just improvisation. »

Next sound door regarding to be eminently opened, Nadah’s second album, now almost in a box: ” it must be said that my first opus was starting to date. But that’s it, my new album is finished. I wrote it in Montreal, with a more intensive songwriting approach. I produce some of the titles, but Mahraganat beatmaker 3Phaz and harpist Sarah Pagé are also in the cast of producers! »

While waiting for the release of the new album by the turbulent Nadah, you can find her on stage, to the sound of Pollution Operacurrently on tour in Europe. Ahwar (2017) is still available on Bandcamp.

This opera does not include Misfits covers.

The Banlieues Bleues festival continues in Seine St Denis until April 21, 2023.

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