2018 release. Krystian Shek released a number of superb and still underrated albums on Namlook's FAX imprint over the years; his first Carpe Sonum offering, 2014's Sometimes Not, was a bracing return to form, and al-Qahirah is the follow-up, and it's a dandy, a longform slice of far-flung ethnotronica that speaks within dub's mother tongue but jettisons the lockstep rhythmic underpinning. In so doing, Shek's augured quite a brilliant thing: digidub that is all languid pools of sound, froth, reverberation, and echo, plunging the listener into a vast abyssal chamber whose sounds mimic the detritus found in long-abandoned sensory deprivation tanks. Yet the whole experience is becalming, welcoming, and thoroughly non-isolationist: throughout the fifteen-minute excursion of the title track, we are treated to a rainbow coalition of thrillingly sculpted shimmers lighting up a desert night sky like some man-made aurora borealis. Shek's skill lies in his ability to showcase works of 'ambience' that are leagues removed from Eno's hoary old definition-this is a music of flares and fanfare, bursting with light, drunk on the absinthe of nature.
Tracks: 1.1 Introducing the Ney Part I 1.2 My Name Is Khaled (Ambient Mix) 1.3 Into the Hammam Part I 1.4 Introducing the Ney Part II 1.5 Al-Qahirah 1.6 Into the Hammam Part II 1.7 Maleha 1.8 The Poem of Antar
Audio Sample: All soundclips are provided by Tidal and are for illustrative purposes only. For some releases, the tracks listed may not accurately represent the tracks on the physical release.
