FOLLOW US ON:
GET THE NEWSLETTER
CONTACT US
Marching music for 21st century rebellion: Mutamassik’s ‘That Which Death Cannot Destoy’

image
 
Mutamassik’s 13-track That Which Death Cannot Destroy was one of 2010’s most under-recognized releases in underground music. It could also turn out to be a brilliant soundtrack to the current anti-authoritarian street-fight spreading throughout Egypt, the Maghreb and the Middle East.

Even better—the whole album is offered for FREE download.

Mutamassik (meaning “stronghold” and “tenacity” in Arabic) is the nom de tune of Giulia Lolli, a half-Italian/half-Egyptian composer and DJ with a background that’s reflected in her splintered internationalist musical style. Born in Italy and raised in the American Rustbelt, Lolli went to New York City in time to swoop quickly in and out of the illbient scene of the mid-‘90s before heading out to Cairo, and finally landing up in what she terms a “CAVEmen-style” existence with her husband, Brooklyn guitarist Morgan Craft, and child in Tuscany.

Lolli has described her music as “Sa’aidi Hardcore & Baladi Breakbeats: Egyptian & Afro-Asiatic Roots mixed with the head-nod of hip-hop & the bass and syncopation of hardstep.” (The term “Sa’aidi” can refer to people of Upper [central-eastern] Egypt, and can also be interpreted as “ascending”; “Baladi” refers to traditional, oft-rural Arabic folk music.)

With that said, That Which Death… sees Lolli lay down a ritualized heavily percussive base over which she smears rumbling bass tones, cranky cello, evocative samples and scratches, various electronic instrumentation, and her own subliminal vocals to create an otherworldy brand of liberationist marching music.
 

 
Get That Which Death Cannot Destroy free…

Posted by Ron Nachmann
|
01.29.2011
12:36 pm
|