- A bright and wild coming together of underground and mainstream dance music based on Egyptian mahraganat.
- "This genre must be called musical chaos. This is what mahraganat means for these uneducated persons," Helmy Bakr, one of Egypt's most famous composers of the '60s, once told the BBC. The music he's criticising—mahraganat—is incredibly popular in Egypt, and its top singers rack up hundreds of millions of views on YouTube. But if Bakr and critics like him consider mahraganat's smooth, Autotuned blend of R&B and EDM to be musical chaos, then I wonder what they'd make of El Kontessa's debut release Nos Habet Caramel. In dance music circles, the Cairo producer's brand of mahraganat would probably fall under IDM, a term that would disgust El Kontessa as much as it would delight Bakr. But he wouldn't stay delighted for long. Nos Habet Caramel is like mahraganat on ecstasy, a bright and wild coming together of underground and mainstream dance music.
Mahraganat literally translates as "festivals," and Nos Habet Caramel feels like El Kontessa's idea of a particularly sweaty and rambunctious one. El Kontessa switches up tempos in her tracks like an F1 driver shifts through gears at Circuit de Monaco, accelerating from lacklustre BPMs into full throttle club music on "Dofda3" and "Moka3bat." This helter skelter soundscape only becomes more wild thanks to the incomprehensible bursts of laughter, stutters, moans and the odd warble that pop in and out. The absurdity peaks with "Ghaltet Meen"'s dizzying kaleidoscope of textures, from contorted sub bass to sharp percussion to shaky vocals through to chirrups, rustlings and crunches. This complex orchestra builds and builds in a way that could be likened to the drama of classical music, but its speed and the very nature of its samples place it in the middle of the mosh pit, not the concert hall.
The acoustic and synthetic instruments are bullish and muddled, too, criss-crossing each other like electrical wires—which either emboldens their characteristics or blends them into something more curious. The twinkling synths on "Mesh Marshmallow" and the dronier sounds on "Dofda3" mimic the winding melody of an arghul or mizmar. A range of traditional percussion from (what sounds like) bendirs to riqs to tablas loosely holds everything together beside basslines that would be at home on the UKF Dubstep channel ("Ghaltet Meen") or Ginuwine's "Pony" ("Moka3bat"). This intermingling of cultures and ages would no doubt repulse a purist with strict views on what qualifies as tasteful Arabic music. But the more authorities and people like Bakr try to dumb down progressive movements like mahraganat, the more people push back. Nos Habet Caramel is El Kontessa's rebellion, a vibrant celebration of the universal and popular side of music.
Tracklist01. Fassel
02. Bingo
03. Mesh Marshmellow
04. Ghaltet Meen
05. Dofda3
06. Moka3bat
07. Asanser