Tag Archives: Yazz Ahmed

Watch Kennebec’s video for new single ‘The Great Divide’ ft. Yazz Ahmed

30 August 2022

October will see the release of Without Star or Compass, the second album from Kennebec following 2020’s Departure. Speaking about the upcoming album, composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Eric Phillips, the man behind the project, comments:

“The first primary influence for this record is that, more so than ‘Departure’, I wanted to write this record for my friends and others rather than for myself. Maybe it’s also a product of maturing, but I wanted the music to communicate more clearly to others, and be less of an exercise of some kind for myself.”

Without Star or Compass features Future Islands frontman Samuel T. Herring, Sudan Archives and Yazz Ahmed. Ahead of its release on October 7th through Night Times Stories, Kennebec has recently shared the spellbinding ‘The Great Divide’ feat. Yazz Ahmed. The track comes with a video accompaniment made by Kennebec and Mike Denise. Here it is.

Yazz Ahmed shares first single from upcoming album Polyhymnia

03 September 2019

British-Bahraini trumpeter and composer Yazz Ahmed had our full attention back in June when she teased her upcoming third album Polyhymnia. Releasing next month through Ropeadope Records, Polyhymnia is a suite of music inspired and celebrating the life of six female role-models, from Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai to civil rights activist Rosa Parks. The good news is that Ahmed has now shared the album’s first spellbinding single, ‘Lahan al​-​Mansour’, dedicated to Haifaa Al-Mansour, Saudi Arabia’s first female film director. Take a listen below.

Yazz Ahmed releases 12″ single ‘A Shoal of Souls’

12 June 2019

Two years on from the release of La Saboteuse, Bahrain-raised, London-based trumpeter and composer Yazz Ahmed has a third album on the way called Polyhymnia. Slated for an October release through Ropeadope Records, Polyhymnia is a suite of music inspired and dedicated to six female role-models, from Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai to civil rights activist Rosa Parks.

Preceding the album release, and bringing her La Saboteuse project to a close, the celebrated musician put out ‘A Shoal of Souls’, a special limited release 12″ single, available on her bandcamp. ‘A Shoal of Souls’ is a tribute to the many lives lost by those who have tried to cross the Mediterranean Sea. Yazz explains:

“I was already thinking about the migrants who perished at sea when I named the chapter The Shoal of Souls, and this new composition is dedicated to all the people who have lost their lives crossing the sea in search of a better future. I hope the music conveys the strength and power of the human spirit, the bravery to risk everything for their families, the anger I feel at the response of the West, a lack of empathy, a lack of compassion. They are not a swarm, they are us – humans. The music is also inspired by Sufism, the idea of whirling and turning, falling into a trance, a dream. I see a mirror with the whirling, turning ocean, a whirlpool of lost souls, of untold stories, talents and lives unfulfilled, joining together in the eternal dance and rhythm of a vast shoal of fish which seems to beat like a heart.”

‘A Shoal of Souls’ is a staggering piece. Take a listen now.