It's Worse, by Shakeeb Abu Hamdan & Sholto Dobie

It's Worse

by Shakeeb Abu Hamdan & Sholto Dobie

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1.	Slow's O'er 07:14	buy track
2.	Pond Clack 02:52	buy track
3.	It's Worse 04:02	buy track
4.	Banishment 03:08	buy track
5.	Sling-Shotting 03:55	buy track

about

Shakeeb Abu Hamdan and Sholto Dobie unveil a remote sonic partition between their respective abodes in Lebanon and Lithuania. Letting a melange of new and archival material wind around each other, swell back and forth and coalesce into a nebulous mass, they tease the temporality of real time improvisation, opting instead for a near mythical, ghost-like exchange.

At the time of making this, the two had never played together in real life, and while each sonic element can sing on its own, nothing falls out of the frame or feels like a loose fractal. Sholto's self-built organ breathes deep sighs and hisses, meeting Shakeeb's undulating electronics and ricocheting rhythmics in a series of harmonic, tumbling gestures. Like Limpe Fuchs' work with Anima, there is space given for elements to clatter and scatter, but also bring towards circling motifs. Organ dirges & patterned drums emerge out of the misty plains, raising themselves skywards.

Sholto and Shakeeb's own locality might or might not have contributed to their ventures, but we can't help but feel an imprint embossed in its genetic make-up. Listen closely and one can hear the spectres of regional folk musics, ceremonies, lonely streets, day-to-day banality... Together they let their complex inner & outer worlds meet and dance in a sonic apparition.

Shakeeb Abu Hamdan: drums, amplified drums and electronics
recorded in Beirut and Glasgow, 2018-2019

Sholto Dobie: self-built organ
recorded in Vilnius, 2020

Assembled and mixed by Shakeeb Abu Hamdan in Beirut and Gharifeh, 2020

Mastered by John Hannon at NO

Text by Fielding Hope

Originally released on Cafe OTO's digital label Takuroku in 2020

credits

released December 10, 2021

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Shakeeb Abu Hamdan Beirut, Lebanon

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