Here it is our teaser for our debut single Ostinato. ;) 

Ostinato is our debut instrumental track. The song recorded, mixed and mastered at Ganoub Studio.

Ostinato (teaser)

"Ostinato" is our debut single track. The song has been recorded, mixed and mastered at Ganoub Studio.

“Ostinato” was basically an afterthought while working on a different approach to my songwriting, where I was trying to set arabic poetry to song. I had to scratch my head a few times while trying to fit the stanzas of a poem into phrases which made sense musically. What seemed to fit was a 5-bar musical phrase instead of the traditional, Western 4-bar phrase. I wanted to have a sort of instrumental introduction to the song, so I started working out an arrangement for synthesizers, strings, and horns to create a gradual build-up. Eventually, this section took on a life of its own, and became its own piece. 
	I was thinking a lot about creation as a larger concept while working out these ideas. There is a mysterious and elusive power in the act of creation. The motor-like repetitions of the various lines in “Ostinato,” which is where the name comes from, give rise to the idea of the whole being greater than the sum-of-the-parts. The individual parts in the arrangement are perhaps too simple and uninteresting, especially with so many repetitions. However, when they are all heard together, something more interesting happens within the flow of the piece. 
	The percussion elements, arranged and performed by Amr el-Zanaty, certainly took the piece into a deeper space. The driving frame drum, or deff, as well as the tabla, serve as a backdrop to some sort of ancient ritual. These are sounds and rhythms which might be heard during the folkloric Egyptian ceremony known as the Zar. Sounds arrive at first from seemingly far-off, unidentified places, followed by a great build-up. The percussion elements drive this through to an eventual climax once the guitar hits. I personally feel there is a transcendental quality here.


Abdel Hady: 1st Trumpet
Wael Saad: 2nd Trumpet
Omar Ashour: Lead Guitar, Oud, Toy Gimbri, Keyboards, Synthesizers, Sampling, Bass
Gammal Mossad Mostafa: Strings
Amr el-Zanaty: Tabla, Deff
Tamer Essam: Drums

Composed by Omar Ashour 
Produced by Omar Ashour, Amr el-Zanaty, and Amr Hefny. 

The song has been recorded, mixed, and mastered at Ganoub Studio | @ganoubstudios

Social Media and PR by Naqada Music Management | www.naqada.org

5amsa

Ostinato

"Why don't you come and see what's left to lose, besides reality?
Don't you get tired from holding on, to that last bit of dream?" 

We are so excited to share with you our latest single, This Process. 

Written, arranged, performed, and recorded by Omar Ashour in his home in the winter of 2018

Mixed and mastered by Amr Hefny in Ganoub Studio, spring, 2018

Produced by Amr Hefny and Omar Ashour

Artwork by: Ziad Ashraf | Instgram - @chaollage

Lyrics:

There's always that chance you can let yourself go to the night's embrace;
Promise to break your fall.
And sure, there is no stopping it, once you let one foot slip,
you're gonna have to loosen the grip, could you do it?
Why don't you come and see what's there to lose, besides reality?
Take one long step away, you'll fnd, it warps and it fades.
We all wanna settle at the end of the day, make a life that seems right,
stay the same, afraid of change.
Do you wish that feeling would go and fnd a place,
far away, far from here; do you wanna separate? Today?
Why don't you come and see what's left to lose, besides reality?
Don't you get tired from holding on, to that last bit of dream?
I see you, walking the same path, turning away..
I want you to know, that you just might make it, if you let yourself go.
Spend too long, with too many skeletons, you turn into one.

This Process (single version)

"The name of this piece came to me after reading Naguib Mahfouz's Awlad Haretna. Adham in the story appears early on as a central character, and he spends a lot of his time in the garden of his adopted home, al-baytul-kabir, or “the big family house.” When he's not working, he spends his time enjoying the garden, daydreaming about a special someone, and playing his music. When I was first writing the music, I wasn't really thinking about all of this. I was really just playing with the Arabic maqam (scale) known as hijaz, which, incidentally, is also a tetrachord found in the Western harmonic minor scale. Later, I connected the music with the narrative in Mahfouz's story. “Adham” is special to me as it marks the first time I've truly experimented with Eastern scales on a composition of my own." - Omar Ashour. 

Ahmed el-Iskandarani: Nay
Omar Ashour: Keyboards, Sampling
Mahmoud Abdel Monem: Bass
Amr el-Zanaty: Djembe, Udu

Composed by Omar Ashour 
Produced by Omar Ashour, Amr el-Zanaty, and Amr Hefny. 

The song has been recorded, mixed, and mastered at Ganoub Studio | @ganoubstudios

Social Media and PR by Naqada Music Management | www.naqada.org

أَدْهَمُ - Adham

I think it's incredibly challenging to try to be free in this world. Freedom can mean all kinds of things, depending on who you talk to. To free yourself from ego, social programming, ideas passed down from the family/tribe is an incredibly painful process. With “This Process,” I feel many things, including pain, liberation, and comfort. 
The 1970s, 80s, and even some of the 90s will likely be remembered as a golden age in music. The influence of this period has definitely found its way into “This Process.” Tunes like “Controversy” and “Pop Life” by Prince, for instance, were a big influence on me in terms of the juxtaposition between a catchy pop groove and a deep lyrical message. The early recordings on the Slam! imprint by Mostafa Ammar provided me with lessons in the “economy of arrangement.” 
Depeche Mode, a huge name in the 80s synthpop scene, created a special sound using analogue synthesizers and drum machines which piqued my curiosity, and was probably the reason I got out of purely guitar-based music. Even the hip-hop production approaches from this golden age became very much a part of my production explorations. I would say this period in recorded music will definitely be remembered as a rich, dynamic, and unique renaissance of creative output, inspiring artists for years to come.

Omar Ashour → Vocals, Guitars, Keyboards, Synthesizers

Lyrics by Omar Ashour
Composed by Omar Ashour 
Produced by Omar Ashour, Amr el-Zanaty, and Amr Hefny. 

The song has been mixed and mastered at Ganoub Studio | @ganoubstudios

Social Media and PR by Naqada Music Management | www.naqada.org

This Process

This song is an example of how developing a musical idea can create dramatic changes in the core of the tune. The original riff, which the pre-chorus is based on, implied a neo-soul, r&b sound. I had recorded it on my phone, as I often do with ideas that come up. When I decided to pull it out, instead of trying to develop it as an r&b tune, I programmed a Brazilian-style beat on the drums in my software, and set the riff to that. The transition between styles was fairly smooth, so I kept going down that route. This one was also a great study for me in terms of jazz-style harmony, modulation, and improvisation. It really pushed me to develop some chops in that department and allowed me to further test my limits as an improviser.

Fatima Waleed: Vocal
Omar Ashour: Guitars, Trombone, Keyboard, Bass
Abdel Hady: 1st Trumpet
Wael Saad: 2nd Trumpet 
Amr el-Zanaty:  Cajón, Jam Block, Pandeiro, Shakers

Lyrics by Omar Ashour
Composed by Omar Ashour 


Produced by Omar Ashour, Amr el-Zanaty, and Amr Hefny. 

The song has been recorded, mixed, and mastered at Ganoub Studio | @ganoubstudios

Social Media and PR by Naqada Music Management | www.naqada.org

Storybook

The lyrics of “Mirror” were initially in Arabic. After playing it for Zanaty and hearing his reflections, I decided to take another gander at it but this time with english words. It actually did make much more sense over the groove I had in place, and then I thought, “why not treat the vocals as more of an instrument as opposed to just a medium for words?” Thus, I deliberately let the words take a backstage to the melody and the groove, and really drew them out over the verses. I was probably inspired by a performance I did with Zanaty's percussion group, where he led us in a folkloric interpretation of Black Sabbath's moody “Planet Caravan.” So, I suppose this is partly his idea.

Omar Ashour: Vocals, Trombone, Keyboards, Synthesizers, Bass
Abdel Hady: 1st Trumpet
Wael Saad: 2nd Trumpet  
Toqa el-Hagrasi: Qanun
Amr el-Zanaty: Congas
Tamer Essam: Drums

Lyrics by Omar Ashour
Composed by Omar Ashour 
Produced by Omar Ashour, Amr el-Zanaty, and Amr Hefny. 

The song has been recorded, mixed, and mastered at Ganoub Studio | @ganoubstudios

Social Media and PR by Naqada Music Management | www.naqada.org

Mirror

Somewhere into the process of writing the music for this album, I became curious about the idea of setting Arabic text to song. I decided to turn to a divan, or a collection of Arabic poetry, which was released by a contemporary Egyptian poet named Karim el-Fawwal. The divan, entitled Poems of Love & War, contained one particular poem which caught my attention at the time which was “Madden Gadid.” I suppose there are many interpretations to the meaning behind this poem, and I'll leave it at that.

	As for the music, it was actually written on 'oud, the Middle-Eastern forefather of the guitar, in what I can only assume to be the traditional way of setting the words of Eastern poetry to musical phrases. It was an enlightening experience for me, since all of my focus during the composition was on melodic line and phrasing, as opposed to thinking in the chord-melody sense of Western songwriting. After some messing around with the pentatonic scale on 'oud and trying to sing the words with some coherent rhythm, I fell upon the idea of laying out the melody across a five-bar-phrase, as opposed to a four-bar-phrase which is very common in Western songs. This seemed to work well, since the song could still be written with a common 4/4 time signature.  From here, I was able to build my arrangement up with rock-combo-type instruments and have the elements fit together in time. The song ended up having an African/Bedouin vibe, although that wasn't totally my intention from the start. It is really interesting to me how one can end up at a destination totally unseen by deciding to take a new road, as was the case here. Regardless of the outcome, I must say that I enjoyed this particular experiment.

Fatima Waleed: Vocal
Omar Ashour: Guitars, Keyboard, Backing Vocal, Bass
Amr el-Zanaty: Djembe, Congas, Sagat (finger-cymbals), Cow Bell, Electronic Drums

Lyrics by Karim el-Fawwal
Composed by Omar Ashour 
Produced by Omar Ashour, Amr el-Zanaty, and Amr Hefny. 

The song has been recorded, mixed, and mastered at Ganoub Studio | @ganoubstudios

Social Media and PR by Naqada Music Management | www.naqada.org

مَاضٍ جَديدٍ - Madden Gadeed

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 

2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. 

From the Book of Genesis

	Regardless of what anyone believes, or disbelieves, at our core as humans, there seem to be fundamental questions about our existence that keep lingering, and usually not too far underneath the surface. These are questions like “who am I,” “where did I come from,” and “why am I here?” Who lives an entire lifetime without, at least for a moment, pondering one or more of these? I was inspired by the creation story in the Book of Genesis when I put “Siffre” together. It was kind of a sonic thought-experiment to hear what those events would actually sound like. At the same time, it is a humble offering to the Source of all creation, and an opening to my own work.

Some of the audio heard on this piece is actually sampled from the Voices of Glacier Bay: Soundscapes project, which has captured some of the environmental sounds at the Glacier Bay National Park & Preserve in Alaska. To learn more about this beautiful wildlife park, visit: https://www.nps.gov/glba/index.htm

The following is a list of the samples and credits used on this track:

“South Marble Island,” taken from Marble Islands Soundscape Gallery, 
Credit: H. Lentfer / NPS
URL: https://www.nps.gov/glba/learn/nature/marble-islands-soundscape-gallery.htm

“Leaping Salmon at Gloomy Knob,” taken from Lower Bay Soundscape Gallery, Credit: H. Lentfer / NPS
URL: https://www.nps.gov/glba/learn/nature/lower-bay-soundscape-gallery.htm

3)	“Glacier Ice on the Beach,” taken from Glaciers Soundscape Gallery, 
Credit: H. Lentfer / NPS
	URL: https://www.nps.gov/glba/learn/nature/glaciers-soundscape-gallery.htm

4) “Wind - over a wheat field - long.” taken from soundsnap
           Credit: Lynn Publishing
 URL: https://www.soundsnap.com/search/audio/wind%20wheat/score

Synthesizers by Omar Ashour

Composed by Omar Ashour 
Produced by Omar Ashour, Amr el-Zanaty, and Amr Hefny. 

The song has been recorded, mixed, and mastered at Ganoub Studio | @ganoubstudios

Social Media and PR by Naqada Music Management | www.naqada.org

صِفْرٌ - Sefr

“Habiba” is a mediation on a moment where a relationship has reached an impasse, and the couple are too exhausted to give any more. It’s neither romantic nor philosophical; it’s real, and I think just about everyone has experienced this sort of moment, whether it’s been in the context of an intimate relationship, friendship, or family. Honestly, I believe the song’s words better explain this than my reflection on it.

Fatima Waleed → Vocal
Omar Ashour → Guitars, Keyboard, Bass
Toqa el-Hagrasi → Qanun
Amr el-Zanaty → Bongos, Shakers
Tamer Essam → Drums

Lyrics by Omar Ashour
Composed by Omar Ashour 
Produced by Omar Ashour, Amr el-Zanaty, and Amr Hefny. 

The song has been mixed, mixed, and mastered at Ganoub Studio | @ganoubstudios

Social Media and PR by Naqada Music Management | www.naqada.org

حَبيبَة - Habiba

Skeletons is an Egyptian Psychedelic/Funk Fusion band that was established in early 2019.

Skeletons

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