El Kontessa /
الكونتيسة


Nos Habet Caramel, El Kontessa's debut album, brings together 7 sample-heavy, beat-driven tracks with accelerating polyrhythms, echoing Mahraganat percussion, vocal hits, bursts of synths and fragments from Cairo's sonic landscape.

Bringing together her production and experience as a DJ, El Kontessa navigates those two worlds seamlessly, creating a condensed and shorter DJ-like structure with every track.

Like the artwork, illustrated by El Kontessa herself, the album takes on slippery shapeshifting forms that seem to dissipate just as they solidify. The sounds of ‘Nos Habet Caramel’ are oversaturated, entangled yet fluid, carrying in them a sense of longing that is constantly disrupted and changing.

نص حبة كراميل، ألبوم الكونتيسة الأول، يضمّ ٧ مقطوعات موسيقية غنيّة بالعيّنات الصوتية، تمتاز بالإيقاعات المتداخلة والمتسارعة، والتي تردّد 
موسيقى المهرجانات، وفيض من السينثات، واجزاء من المشهد الصوتي للقاهرة.

يتّخذ الألبوم أشكالًا متغيّرة ومتقلّبة تبدو كأنَّها تتلاشى بمجرّد ظهورها، وهي تشبه في ذلك غلاف الالبوم، الذي رسمته الكونتيسة بنفسها. يوجد في أصوات "نص حبة كراميل" فائض من الاضطراب، هي أصوات متشابِكة ولكن متدفّقة في نفس الوقت، تحمل داخلها شعورًا بالحنين لكّنه معرّض بشكل مستمرّ للتقطّع والتغيّر.


OUT ON Bilna'es JULY 28, 2023
bilnaes.bandcamp.com

El Kontessa : soundcloud.com/elkontessa
instagram.com/elkontessa_/

All tracks produced and recorded by El Kontessa

Artwork: Art direction and typography by Yazan El Zubi
Illustration by Fajr Soliman
Mixed by Ismael Hosny
Mastered by Heba Kadry

About

El Kontessa, is the stage name of Cairo-based producer, DJ, and multidisciplinary artist Fajr Soliman, her city comes alive. In her voice, Cairo’s soundscapes are deconstructed, combined with...strokes of different music genres, and turned into multilayered sonic explorations. Since debuting in 2018, she has been a staple of Egypt’s alternative music scene, thanks to features on label irish’s ‘did you mean: irish’ compilations and international outlets such as Vice, Boiler Room, and NTS Radio. El Kontessa has also crossed over, performance-wise, outside of Egyptian borders, as she has played esteemed venues and festivals across Africa and Europe.