Photo: Ross Wightman
Vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, and composer Amanda Ekery has announced the release of her fourth full-length album, Árabe, a deeply personal and culturally rich exploration of Syrian and Mexican shared history and identity along the El Paso border. Drawing from her own life, lineage, and the blending of cultures, Árabe is a labour of love that spanned over five years and saw Ekery spend countless hours conducting interviews with her family and members of the Syrian Ladies Club of El Paso, collaborating with Yale SWANA scholar Dr. Mark Eggerman, and exploring the shared migration stories between Syria and Mexico. The album was also shaped by an artist residency she did at the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, which has the largest Arab population outside the Arab world.
With music and storytelling intertwined, Árabe delves into an array of themes, “from food, gambling, and evil eyes, to immigration law, biracial identity, and the fraught relationship between immigrant entrepreneurship and workers’ rights.” In addition to the twelve original tracks featured on the album, Ekery’s meticulous research is also reflected in an accompanying essay for each song, offering insight into the story and history behind each track.
Musically, Árabe showcases her diverse influences, including country swing, mariachi, jazz, and improvisation. The album blends different genres, from free jazz to Americana folk, all highlighted by Ekery’s heartfelt lyrics and unique voice. To bring the album to life, she enlisted the help of longtime collaborator Andrew Boudreau on piano, Jess Tsang on percussion, Jhoely Garay on guitar, Emily Johnson-Erday on mandolin, and Hannah Marks on bass.
We’ll have to wait until May 9th for the album’s release but Ekery has already shared the spellbinding ‘Stitching’ as a first single and you can hear it below.
With her deeply personal and historically rich new album Árabe just weeks away, vocalist, composer, and multi-instrumentalist Amanda Ekery has released a second single called ‘Yenobak Eih’, which follows the spellbinding ‘Stitching’. Like the album as a whole, the track continues Ekery’s exploration of identity, memory, and cultural storytelling, grounded in her experience as a half Syrian, half Mexican artist. Rooted in oral history and archival sound, ‘Yenobak Eih’ began with a family discovery: Ekery found her great-grandmother’s record collection tucked away in a closet full of 78 RPM records from Brooklyn-based Arab American labels, and homemade recordings including her great-grandfather Fahim announcing “memories from your relatives in El Paso, Tejas”, which opens the song.
