Photo: Thomas Boucher

Sam Shalabi has been involved in an array of phenomenal adventurous projects, from his trio The Dwarfs of East Agouza to his role as arranger and musical director in Jerusalem In My Heart´s album last year. This summer, the composer and musician finally announced the return of his large orchestral ensemble Land Of Kush with a new album, Sand Enigma, following 2013’s The Big Mango. Land of Kush had already enticed us with ‘Safe Space‘ and now a new magnificent track, ‘Domyat 1331’, has surfaced ahead of the album’s release on November 8th through Constellation. Shalabi commented on the new track:

“Domyat 1331 has 3 resonances – it is for my mom who was fading away into dementia while I was writing this section of Sand Enigma. Domyat is the town in Egypt where she was born on August 13 1931 – 1331 is also an “angel number” – if it keeps cropping up in your life it’s supposed to mean a guardian angel is watching out for you and sending you positive vibes (so say those who know of such matters)… The melody is a kind of paraphrase of a lullaby she used to sing to me when I was I kid and in the piece I tried to convey the arc of what was happening to her towards the end of her life. Also in a weird way this piece makes me think of Egypt right now and “her” (hopefully temporary) dementia…”

Listen to ‘Domyat 1331’ below.