- 2023's breakout producer continues to dazzle and confound with his brutal but precise brand of club music.
- When Amman-based Yazan Zyadat, AKA Toumba, dropped his Hessle Audio debut earlier this year, it felt paradigm shifting—think Objekt's Cactus or Peverelist's Dance til the Police Come. The 12-inch meshed SWANA musical traditions with a global continuum of bass music, from reggaeton to UK funky. But he didn't just take samples of traditional instruments and layer them over four-to-the-floor templates. Instead, Zyadat rewrites dance music from the perspective of his home country. He challenges audiences to recognise that there's more to Arabic music than the oud. His follow-up record, Janoob, continues to raise the bar. Across six tracks, complex rhythms and fleeting melodies collide to create a singular cosmos from one of dance music's most singular talents.
Zyadat approaches his musical heritage with a shade of the political. "The stuff I'm making now, if you hear it, it has no resemblance to Arabic music," he explained in a Mixmag interview. "It's much more subtle [...] I didn't want to parcel it up like 'this is Levantine music'—so if you know, you know." He doesn't want to become pigeonholed or play into a fetishised idea of what Arab music sounds like. And on Janoob, there are only a few moments where that kind of instrumentation appears (the wind melody on "Back of the Hand," and the extended break on "Qasf"). That said, the record is still defined by dabke rhythms. Each track on Janoob has some element of a hand drum in it, but these are hardened into the chrome polish of synthetic drum machines. Halfway through "Rashash," a goblet drum shows up. But just as quickly, it dissipates into percussive pressure that teeters towards implosion, like someone trying to open a can of Coke that went through a spin cycle.
The other defining feature of Janoob is how Zyadat slows down motifs from faster genres—some tracks clock in under the 100 BPM mark. The bleeping pulses of "Eqla3" has the cinematic polish of European techno, the fizzing subs on "Janoob" reference footwork and "Back of the Hand" flirts with grime. But these tracks are slowed over syncopated rhythms with only occasional whiplash jolts of melody. The only analogy I can offer is imagining that this is what a DJ Screw set might have sounded like had he lived long enough to be booked at CTM or a GHE20G0TH1K party.
While it may seem like Zyadat appeared out of nowhere, he's been quick to point back to the larger community he came from. He's a promoter for, and a disciple of, MNFA, Amman's preeminent underground club. Located in the middle of Amman, the venue hosts guests such as Swan Meat and Parrish Smith alongside local talent, introducing the city to challenging, interesting music from across the globe. Janoob is both a product of this community and a singular vision. Zyadat seems set to not only put his hometown on the map, but to rewrite global dance cartography with his own bass coordinates.
Tracklist01. Janoob
02. Qasf
03. Eqla3
04. Rashash
05. Back Of The Hand
06. Bouquet Of Kicks