Premiere: Molotof – Gabal Ahmar

Music

Cairo’s Rakete welcome the Egyptian producer for his long-awaited solo LP.

You knew when you were home; as in really home. It wasn’t just the familiar faces sitting on street corners or the comforting sound of the locals selling their goods at the morning market, it was in everything, no matter how big or small. The way the ground crunched underfoot; the smell of the dust kicked up by a thousand feet that clogged up your lungs; the erratic ringing of the small shop as people entered and left in a hurry: he’d missed it all – the good and the bad – perhaps more than he’d realised.

The next release on Cairo’s Rakete comes courtesy of a trailblazer in the Egyptian electronic music scene. Under his previous guise Hadayek 303, Molotof was the first Egyptian producer to fuse mahraganat sounds and percussion with shades of acid house and trap music; a musical fusion that was termed ‘Molowave’ and saw him collaborate with artists like Wegz, Marwan Pablo, Sadat and Fifty. Gabal Ahmar is perhaps his most refined body of work and marks a ‘coming of age’ moment for the producer. Saturated in his signature mahraganat-influenced synth lines and 808 drum programming, the release cements his reputation as a pioneering voice in Egyptian electronic music.