EGYPT: Blufrank – Lazer Wounds

The melancholic, retro-manic disco of Blufrank couldn’t be more different from the urgent sounds of electro chaabi, even though both hail from modern, post-revolution Cairo. While the Auto-Tuned chaabi MCs and vocalists such as Sadat and Alaa Fifty demand change – mainly cultural but sometimes political as well – Blufrank, a nameless and masked dance producer, seeks to avoid confrontation by offering an escape into an imaginary zone of fantasy dancefloor hedonism. His Soundcloud profile speaks of this desire to remove oneself totally from the here and now: “Created in the future, sent back in time by the last living human beings before being programmed to follow a certain pattern, oh they created me in the first place to be a reminder of the humanity and the feelings that we lost.”

SYRIA: Fasel Al Sawi & Fasel Kesmet Al Sawi – Ancestral Dhikr

Jason Hamacher, whose background is in the Washington DC hardcore-punk scene, made several trips to Syria just before the outbreak of the current civil war to record devotional Sufi chants, many of which have been compiled on NAWA: Ancient Sufi Invocations and Forgotten Songs from Aleppo, released this year on Lost Origin Sound Series & Electric Cowbell Records. This track was captured at night in the courtyard of a 500-year-old house. After the recording, Hamacher asked what the songs meant and was told: “This is how we fight terrorism.” You can learn more about this great record and Syrian Sufi chant courtesy of this excellent NPR radio feature.

THE LEBANON: El Rass – آدم، داروين والبطريق

Given that my Arabic is about as impressive as my powers of levitation, some might wonder what I’m doing listening to Lebanese hip-hop. But nothing sharpens the enjoyment of the subtler pleasures of appreciating the grain of a rapper’s voice and technique like listening to it in a completely alien language. This hour-long anthology of recent cuts is entitled Adam, Darwin & the Penguin (Yalla! Yalla! Google Translate!) so one can only presume El Rass (The Head) has his mind on relatively esoteric and important matters. The production here is really excellent, too: moody and low-slung, utilising the baglama as well as more “traditional” digital hip-hop beat-making tools.

JERUSALEM: Melechesh – Grand Gathas of Baal Sin

Be still my thrashing heart! Most momentous news reaches us from unhallowed metal label Nuclear Blast that the undisputed kings of Assyrian/Mesopotamian/Sumerian (delete according to length of hair) metal, Melechesh, have started work on their sixth album, Enki. Rest assured that as soon as the second piece of audio is available we shall be featuring it in this playlist as a matter of utmost national urgency. In the meantime, here is the fabulous Grand Gathas of Baal Sin video filmed in the Basilica Cistern reservoir under the streets of Istanbul, to whet your blackened and necrotic whistle.

MOROCCO: Electric Jalaba

In the summer of 2011, the group Soundspecies met UK-based Moroccan gnawa master-musician Simo Lagnawi at a festival and got together for a jam. A few days afterwards they recorded their first album, Introducing Electric Jalaba; a superbly hypnotic and psychedelic culture clash. Anyway, recently in a fit of kindness, the person who runs the Electric Jabala Soundcloud uploaded a load of these tracks, which you can check out, with Lagnawia being one of them. And typically ace it is, too.

Thanks this month go to Duncan Ballantyne. Please feel free to email suggestions for inclusion in future playlists to John@TheQuietus.com