• •
Release date
Genre
Label
From
BPM
Format
1
2
3
4
5
6
Tags
Description
Supporters
Details
Release date
Genre
Label
From
BPM
Format
Idiot - Noise Diva feat. Krampfhaft REMIX
Idiot - Noise Diva feat. Krampfhaft REMIX
Release date
Nov 28, 2024
Genre
Label
Simsara Records
BPM
—
Format
WAV
Description
Simsara Records commemorates Salute the Parrot’s 10-year anniversary with a remix compilation. Deena Abdelwahed, Noise Diva, El Waili, El Kontessa, Julmud, 3Phaz, and 3xOJ offer new takes on the album’s eight tracks. Surreal, stirring, and deeply rhythmic, Benhayyi Al-Baghbaghan (Salute the Parrot) is just as raw and complex as the urban metropolis from which it came. The album’s impact runs so deep that it even helped shape the birth of Simsara Music, as founder Sarah El Miniawy’s experience listening to Louca’s album 10 years ago influenced her decision to focus only on music (and not other artforms) from the region. Simsara is now thrilled to present reinterpretations of this decade-old masterpiece, featuring the latest generation of boundary-pushing artists. The Salute the Parrot 10-year anniversary remix compilation comes out 28 Nov 2024 via Simsara Records. Louca recorded the album—his second full-length—during a momentous period in Cairo’s history. Amid political upheavals and increased access to the internet and social media, experimental artists emerged from the underground and started collaborating together for the first time. “Post-2011, it felt like a village,” Louca recalls. “You started looking and being inspired by people around you. Since then, most of my musical inspiration has come from the bigger family. Most of the records I’ve been listening to over the past ten years are records of friends.” While it’s steeped in the sounds of Cairo’s experimental and electronic scenes, Benhayyi Al-Baghbaghan also draws on ideas from shaabi music—especially the Autotuned MCing style known as mahraganat, which exploded in popularity across Egypt at the same time that Louca was getting started on Benhayyi. Rather than rely on samples, Louca decided to make the album by going into the studio with the musicians around him. More than a dozen artists appeared on Salute the Parrot, contributing rebab, bouzouki, bass, drums, and Arabic keyboards. Mahraganat star Alaa 50 also provides vocals on three tracks. Back home, Louca moulded the recordings in post-production until he ended up with the final result. Benhayyi Al-Baghbaghan (Salute the Parrot) opens with a slow fade-in. Mere whispers of a sticky synth groove grow in volume over a full minute until the tension finally breaks with the crash of a cymbal and the grand entrance of a psychedelic procession. Languorous keyboard ornamentations, a triumphant two-note riff, a snare drum so massive that it could crack a building’s foundation—all of it makes for a fitting start to one of the most epic albums to ever come out of Egypt. Through a swirl of maqam melodies and shaabi rhythms, Maurice Louca’s Benhayyi Al-Baghbaghan bursts with vivid energy and shapeshifting ideas. The album earned widespread acclaim when it first came out on Nawa Recordings in 2014. It got accolades in critics’ reviews and year-end lists, and DJs bumped it over sound systems in venues from Beirut to Berlin. Louca kicked off a busy schedule of international tour dates for the first time, adapting the music for unique and hard-hitting live renderings. The title track appeared on the soundtrack to Leyla Bouzid’s award-winning 2015 feature film, A peine j'ouvre les yeux/As I Open My Eyes, and the music also inspired a younger generation of producers in the region to start making beats and rhymes of their own. Tracklist: The Golden Age (Deena Abdelwahed REMIX) Idiot (Noise Diva feat. Krampfhaft REMIX) Salute The Parrot (El Waili REMIX) Rupture (El Kontessa REMIX) Salt Pans (Julmud REMIX) It Will Set (3Phaz REMIX) Spineless (3xOJ REMIX) Original cover art photography Maha Maamoun Cover art design Siko Tatour / Mooni Studio Mastered by Kassian Troyer at Dubplates & Mastering Rupture remix mixed by Okak Studio