Experimental pop artist Nadah El Shazly on making songs as ‘worlds you can get lost in’
The Egyptian musician speaks about her cinematic new album Laini Tani, a fine balance of traditional and contemporary explored via the lens of pop
“I’ve always felt connected to the past,” says the experimental pop musician Nadah El Shazly.
“In Egypt it can be difficult because our history has been so commercialised, but I definitely feel this deep connection to being a farmer and living off the land — this is something my ancestors would have done.”
El Shazly’s music has often been an interplay with the natural world. The Egyptian artist, who lives between Cairo and Montreal, can be found blending field samples of grasshoppers, barking dogs and chanting priests with electronic textures and syncopated tribal drums.
“I like the idea of music that sounds like something magic is bubbling up through the soil,” she says. That creative mindset is prevalent on her cinematic new album Laini Tani, released on One Little Independent, even if it represents a much more mellow dream pop sound than her previous work.
El Shazly grew up in a Cairo tower block and one of her earliest memories is of bellowing out the songs of Egyptian artists Umm Kulthum and Sayed Darwish to siblings inside a concrete stairwell. But, as she grew into a young adult, she was pulled more towards the city’s emerging hardcore and heavy metal scene, which took off in the mid-2000s thanks to acts such as Scarab, Massive Scar Era and Ethereal Credence.
“I started out doing covers of Misfits songs in a DIY punk band,” El Shazly says, laughing. “My parents definitely like the music I’m making now a whole lot better.”
Her 2017 debut Ahwar feels like a tribute to her Middle Eastern heritage, connecting electronic sounds with acoustic instruments, such as the kalimba, tabla and oud. “Channelling ancient history is really important to me,” she says. “So much of our ancient world is being destroyed. It’s disappearing in front of our eyes. It is important I reference it in my music, so people don’t forget its beauty.”
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Using music as a form of activism was one of the key drivers behind her 2024 noise project, Pollution Opera, a collaboration with sound artist and producer Elvin Brandhi. In its commitment to disintegrating anything approaching a catchy harmony, it’s a continuation of El Shazly’s early punk ethos. With field recordings of Cairo, shrieking monkeys, hissing snakes and human screams, the artists say they “refuse to turn away from the horrors” of climate change.
“Cairo is such an overcrowded city so you really feel it now the world is getting hotter,” El Shazly says. “There’s a claustrophobic love there.”
In Laini Tani, she continues this exploration but through the lens of pop. “I want my songs to be like worlds you can get lost in,” she explains. The album is a fine balance of traditional and contemporary. El Shazly utilises folk traditions such as the 11-string oud and the hydraulophone, a modern instrument that needs water to produce sound. “I like music where it’s like the past and the present are in constant dialogue,” she says.
In Elnadaha (meaning siren), one of Laini Tani’s highlights, El Shazly howls out like a fallen angel about being caught “between heaven and hell”. There’s an obvious darkness to this track, before Montreal-based musician Sarah Pagé’s glistening harp points to a brighter future. “I see myself mostly as a composer, making audio movies,” says El Shazly.
Deflecting questions away from her own hypnotic vocals — which have been likened to Björk by The Quietus — she adds: “Because I’m an immigrant and an outsider there, I sometimes feel isolated in Montreal. I often sit up thinking late at night, alone. When I’m in Egypt, I feel overcrowded but more at home. I’m sure all that juxtaposition made it into my sound.”
Looking ahead, El Shazly hopes to focus more on film scores. She wrote the original soundtrack for the 2022 French-Belgian-Moroccan film The Damned Don’t Cry, a tragic and poignant story of a single mother and her troubled teenage son. She’s continued to work with Middle Eastern filmmakers, scoring 2024’s Last Party in R. Desert by Mahmoud Sabbagh and To a Land Unknown by Mahdi Fleifel. “I like to get lost in a film’s story when I’m composing,” she says. “I definitely see myself as a cinephile. It’s a nice change to try to match another director’s vision.”
El Shazly is preparing for festivals and performances across the US, Canada and Denmark over the coming months and is hoping to do a UK tour in November. “I really want to tour Europe and make it to the UK, but the [visa] restrictions on Egyptian artists have made it difficult,” she says. “It’s also super-expensive making music or touring right now.
“I never want to compromise my creative vision and I only want to do things if I can do them right.”
Nadah El Shazly’s Laini Tani is out now on One Little Little Independent.
