1127

Tqaseem Mqamat El Haram 2016-2019

Genre: ELECTRONIC

Colour LP + Cassette

Boomkat Product Review:

The unmissable, head-twisting debut LP by Cairo's 1127 returns on a special one-off clear vinyl pressing for those who missed its shockwaves for the first time back in summer 2019, now including a bonus tape of previously unreleased, utterly crushing material from his 2016-2019 archive. Huge recommendation if you're into Autechre, Arca, Crowww, Rabit.

Getting right under the skin with its hugely variegated palette of brutalist, rhythmic power electronics and evocative location recordings, ‘Tqaseem Mqamat El Haram 2016-2019’ resembles something like a soundtrack to a Neil Blomkamp flick set it Cario, Egypt, 2050 where stifling heat and pollution means everyone wears breathing apparatus and hover cars sputter about its dusty sprawl. It’s surely one of the most shocking and transfixing sides from North Africa this side of the debut LPs by 1127’s peers, Myslma and Zuli, and should be prized by anyone with an ear for futurist rhythms and microtonal synths of a modern, Afro-futurist order.

Comprising collaged chunks from 1127’s archive arranged in a seamless, diffracted flow that recalls Autechre as well as the mutant adjuncts in Arca’s &&&& or Croww’s ‘Prosthetics MechaMix’, the results feel as though scraped from the insides of 1127’s skull, capturing and rendering the sounds of Cairo street raves ricocheting with spasms of gristly noise, strafing into pockets of cutthroat flashcore and dropping out into smoky, intimate scenes of Arabic dialogue, all threaded together with a distinctive taste for metallic microtonal synthlines and coruscating noise.

The thrilling rinse-and-repeat appeal of the album is now expanded with 26 minutes of exclusive, related, material on a bonus tape, where 1127 doubles down with waves of reticulated rhythm and knotted chromatic colour dominated by destructive levels of distortion comparable to Prurient or Shapednoise at their nastiest. Combined, the LP + tape will surely upend, realign or even confirm conceptions of music from this region, and its relationship to the broader electronic dimension.

Colour LP + Cassette (11)

Exclusive Boomkat Edition of 110 copies - clear vinyl and a bonus tape including previously unreleased material from the archive. Also includes an instant download of the LP tracks dropped to your account.

Play All Colour LP + Cassette (11)