By Sophie Darling and Amelia Zimmatore
Published May 16, 2021
The Outer is the first single from the upcoming project between globally-renowned Egyptian Belgian vocalist Natacha Atlas and production partner Samy Bishai, featuring composer/musician/sound artist Jason Singh.
Exploring themes of societal dystopia, The Inner & The Outer, an Extended Play (EP) album coming out on June 18, 2021 is an emotional and contemplative musical reaction to the challenges society has faced since the start of the Coronavirus pandemic.
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Natacha Atlas’s single, The Outer, released on May 14, 2021, opens the musical project with a relentlessly groove-driven digital fable, an exotic cousin of Massive Attack. The song juxtaposes throughout – from the menace of dark analogue bass synths and distorted beatboxing to Natacha Atlas’s transcendental flow of melodies, soaring over a bed of Alcyona Mick’s cutup piano motifs. This duality can be found in every aspect of the upcoming album; angular dissonance/melodic resolution, analogue/digital production techniques, working alone/collaboratively..
The Outer sees Natacha Atlas boldly progressing her musical journey through new realms, deftly sidestepping nostalgia. Evolving from her electrifying 1990s-era Transglobal Underground sound, she opts instead for her blend of jazz-infused 21st century electronics, providing the perfect opportunity to collaborate with old friend Jason Singh, whose uniquely varied skills have him composing all over the world, for the BBC and many others.
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As a writing team, Atlas and Bishai have brilliantly orchestrated the seamless integration of Middle Eastern maqam vocabularies with hiphop, jazz and electronica, with Bishai’s arrangement and production skills working invisibly behind the scenes, tying it all together. The resultant sonic synergy is unparalleled in its effortless transition of various styles to create a complete new sound, which remains eerily familiar; the memory of a sound unheard.
The Outer explores the fragmentation of a pandemic society – the extroverted and externalised emotional responses to the power, influence and corruption of the outside world: the virus, the media, the powers that be… and all the feelings that come with that: isolation, disorientation, destabilisation, displacement, mistrust, fear, anger…
The Outer single comes with a fantastic animation video.
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Meanwhile, Amelia Zimmatore reports, Stone’s Throw, a single by Elgin, has been released on May 7, 2021. This is the latest track to be taken from Elgin’s forthcoming album titled Weightless/Still that is scheduled for release on May 28, 2021 via Pixie Pace Records (ARC Music Productions International).
“Stone’s Throw is an emotive song of personal reflection on the more solemn points in life, yet the message is uplifted with anthemic musicality in a huge soaring chorus of beautiful vocal harmonies awash with glorious keys,” ARC Music Productions writes.
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Singer Paul Butler tells the record label that Stone’s Throw “is a self-evaluation at a low point. Very much a different version of myself, someone I most probably couldn’t relate to anymore. But a version that needed to happen.”
The Dublin duo Elgin is completed with Anthony Furey; the pair came together having travelled the breadth of the globe as the acclaimed collective The Young Folk and now with Weightless/Still they continue their musical journey under the name Elgin.
Weightless/Still is a stunning atmospheric indie-folk record, which incorporates a wide range of instrumentation with lush guitars, synths, keys, brass and more, all enveloped in decadent vocal harmonies creating a vast, expansive sound.
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The tracks on Weightless/Still tackle themes of defeats, epiphanies, minor victories, smaller blessings and daily awkwardness, such as the idea of imposter syndrome in the lead single ‘Cherry Picked’, with its perfectly weighted line “ You wanted a falcon, I gave you a finch”, or the deprivation of finding comfort in region as found in previous single ‘Oh Love’.
The deeply honest record also takes on the feeling of not being able to help somebody anymore (‘Bulletproof’), while also mediating in the garden and letting the mind wander (‘Apple Tree’), broken love (‘Fault Lines’), or feeling lost and clueless at the end of a relationship (‘Hopeless Swimmer’, written by Anthony).
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Then there’s ‘Sloe’, a song inspired by Colum McCann’s short story Fishing the Sloe Black River, which was turned into a film by Paul’s uncle, Brendan. “Everything in that song is about something completely different – trips, love, life, holidays, friends,” he says.
The album captures so many feelings and states of mind, all aspiring ultimately perhaps to a feeling we often dream about, the feeling of being weightless and still. “As in out-of-body,” says Paul. “The feeling that we never have.”
