Analogue Appreciation: 47SOUL

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Dualism — In an ever more digital, online world, we ask our favourite artists about their most cherished pieces of physical culture. Today, it’s Palestinian shamstep pioneers 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.

Ramzy (ZthePeople): Dave Smith Instruments Mopho Keyboard

Yellow electronic keyboard and synthesiser with controls on a dark background.

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 14 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.

Hamza (El Jehaz): Mate Cup

Cylindrical glass mug with olive green surface and metallic rim, placed in front of a yellow and green food packaging with text "Desde 1926" (Since 1926).

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.

Hamza (El Jehaz): OM Kalthoum Poster

Black-and-white graphic design featuring a large Haribí logo and an abstract human face.

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.

Tareq (El Far3i): Lawwaha

Plaited white rope in a heart shape on a wooden surface.

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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