Photo: Eslam Abd El Salam

A prominent name of Egypt’s independent music scene, Nancy Mounir is a talented and versatile multi-instrumentalist, arranger, and composer who plays various musical instruments including violin, piano, bass, theremin and the kawala, a traditional Egyptian bamboo flute. Following years of work researching female Egyptian singers from the early 20th century, she announced the release of her debut album Nozhet El Nofous, which means “Promenade of the Souls”. The upcoming record “explores microtonality, non-metered rhythms, and bold vulnerability through a musical dialogue between Mounir’s own arrangements and the sounds of archival recordings of once-famed singers”, explains the press release. “It explores the techniques and perspectives of a more freewheeling time period in Arabic music, before Arabic maqam (modal systems) and other musical foundations were standardized by the Middle East’s cultural power brokers in the early 1930s.”

Nozhet El Nofous will see the light of day on June 3rd through Simsara Music’s new imprint Simsara Records, and we can already hear the first otherworldly and entrancing single ‘Khafif Khafif’ featuring Saleh Abdel Hay.