bilna’es بالناقص

Lougy’s Coiffure is a 6-track EP by Cairo-based producer Shah. Inspired by the temporal and spatial configuration of the Egyptian Zaffa—a wedding ceremony that unfolds across public and private spaces, beginning in beauty salons before spilling into the streets and alleys of Alexandria's outskirts—Shah takes this daily occurrence in all its specificity and multitude, turning it into an erratic tour de force that weaves club-electronic elements into its sonic fabric. The commonplace sounds of Zaffa music, replete with traditional drums, darbuka, mizmar, and tambourine, are sampled and reworked into breathless loops textured with and amplified by distorted basslines, gritty electro beats, and interpolated vocals drawn from Egyptian pop culture. Both playful and unsettling, Lougy’s Coiffure sets the conditions for a woozy, boisterous sleepless night, activating bodies into a perpetual state of communal trance.

Mixed by GENG PTP

Mastered by GENG PTP

Artwork by Omar El Sadek

Shah (Kareem El-Gammal) is an Egyptian electronic music producer and composer from Kafr El-Dawwar, currently based in Cairo. Shah’s artistic practice is a bold industrial and techno-inflected reimagination of Egypt’s deluge of contradictory and celebratory soundscapes. His music metabolizes the soundtrack of his youth in the country, without ever foreclosing it. The artist draws from memory as a reliable source to conjure Egypt’s sounds while examining its unfaithful nature as a site of experimentation.