El Kontessa
| El Kontessa | |
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| Biography | «Nos Habet Caramel is like mahraganat on ecstasy, a bright and wild coming together of underground and mainstream dance music.» RA Cairo-based producer, DJ and multidisciplinary artist El Kontessa experiments at the confluence of bass music and polyrhythmic sensibilities, distilling Cairo's sounds into a mash-up of textures and a melding of evocative and maximalist language. El Kontessa's adeptness in interweaving her own production س and DJing acumen constructs condensed, evanescent live sets that traverse ever-evolving sonic topographies. In her debut record, «Nos Habet Caramel» (2023, Bilna'es), she brings together seven sample-heavy, beat-driven tracks with accelerating polyrhythms, echoing Mahraganat percussion, vocal hits, bursts of synths and fragments from Cairo's sonic landscape. Bringing together her production and experience as a DJ, El Kontessa navigates many worlds seamlessly, creating a condensed and shorter DJ-like structure with every track. Like the artwork, illustrated by El Kontessa herself, the album takes on slippery shapeshifting forms that seem to dissipate just as they solidify. The sounds of «Nos Habet Caramel» are over-saturated, entangled yet fluid, carrying in them a sense of longing that is constantly disrupted and changing. Since her emergence in 2018, El Kontessa has graced live stages across the Arab world and Europe, appearing in essential lineups at venues and festivals including the Fri-Son Club Fribourg, Stuttgart Festival, Nykobop Festival in Paris, and Utrecht’s Le Guess Who?. Her sonic explorations can also be found and heard on global platforms such as Nyege Nyege Festival, and Vice Magazine, and across airwaves on stations like NTS, Rinse FM, Movement Radio Noods, and most recently as a resident on Stegi Radio. |
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| Photo Credit | fotodastrato |
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