Analogue Appreciation: 47SOUL

In the music video for ​‘Ghost Town’, the lead sin­gle from 47SOUL’s upcom­ing EP Dual­ism Pt. 1, a Pales­tin­ian man runs through an emp­ty cen­tral Lon­don. He stops as he reach­es White­hall, the street that leads to the Hous­es of Par­lia­ment where many of the country’s gov­ern­ment offices are, as thou­sands of peo­ple hold­ing red, green, white and black flags, and ​‘stop bomb­ing Gaza’ plac­ards, walk past.

Over a dance­floor hit­ting, off beat rhythm, singer Tareq Abu Kwaik (aka El Far3i) sings in a mix of Eng­lish and Ara­bic: ​“My peo­ple on fire / Bring me water / occu­pied by alliance / This goes to my peo­ple they’re lions”.

For the sham­step pio­neers – who blend space-age elec­tron­ics with tra­di­tion­al dabke folk influ­ences – music and pol­i­tics are insep­a­ra­ble. Found­ed in 2013, their name refers to the year before the 1948 Nak­ba (‘cat­a­strope’), when hun­dreds of thou­sands of Pales­tini­ans were forced to leave their home­lands, with hun­dreds of towns and vil­lage destroyed as part of the Zion­ist military’s ​‘War of Independence’.

Dual­ism Pt. 1 pays trib­ute to the Pales­tin­ian jour­nal­ists who have con­tin­ued to risk their lives to report to report on the atroc­i­ties hap­pen­ing inside Gaza. Ahead of its release and their fundrais­ing launch par­ty – where pro­ceeds will go to the Ghas­san Abu Sit­tah Children’s Fund – we asked them to pick out some of their most cher­ished phys­i­cal items.

• Read next: Ples­tia Alaqad: ​“Jour­nal­ists should focus on human­is­ing peo­ple”

Of all the key­boards and plug-ins for lead lines and melodies, the mopho (mono-phon­ic) key­board is the one we keep com­ing back to. Its ana­logue and dig­i­tal com­bo makes design­ing sounds easy. From the begin­ning of our jour­ney until now, we have even used it on occa­sion for bass.

Since we do appre­ci­ate ana­log instru­ments and we write most of our music with­in the world of Ara­bic-scales (many of which have ¹⁄₄ tones), the ques­tion: ​“How do we quar­ter tune this synth?” came up a lot. After some search­ing and tri­al and error, we found out that Karim El-Far was the guy who had a lot of answers, and was very respon­sive. He even made trips to the synth man­u­fac­tur­ers to include our spe­cif­ic key­boards in his updat­ed versions.

Thanks to my Argen­tin­ian friends in Lon­don who intro­duced me to Yer­ba Mate, I became a devot­ed fan of this mag­nif­i­cent drink a few years ago. No mat­ter where I am – at home, in the stu­dio, or on tour –you can be sure my Yer­ba Mate kit is always with me.

This illus­trat­ed poster of the leg­endary Umm Kulthum – the most famous Arab singer of all time – was a gift from my friend, the Jor­dan­ian-Pales­tin­ian artist and design­er Moth­anna Hus­sein, who also played a key role in cre­at­ing major designs for 47SOUL. It holds a cen­tral place in my stu­dio, posi­tioned right in front of me, serv­ing as a con­stant source of inspi­ra­tion and a reminder of her endur­ing artis­tic legacy.

Used by Dabke dancers some­times, this ​‘lawwa­ha’ was gift­ed to me by a dear friend and Dabke troop leader. I keep it around our gear and instru­ments in my stu­dio, and use it as a mul­ti­pur­pose tool to start a groove or as a stress relief thing.

Dual­ism Pt.1 by 47SOUL is out on May 2. Tick­ets for the EP launch par­ty and Pales­tine fundrais­er at Scala on April 29 are avail­able here.

Buy your copy of Huck 81 here.

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