Against the backdrop of the Nile and Cairo’s city lights, James Locksmith warmed up the launch of Red Bull’s Quarter Tone Frequency radio show with an erratic set that touched on a wide spectrum of genres, including psychedelic, rap, rock and house. The set was poorly mixed and seemed not to have been researched for the Egyptian environment, which might explain his genre-hopping, but nevertheless the audience filled up the dance floor to mark Cairo’s first curfew-free night since August.
Jordanian indie-rock band JadaL then took to the stage of the Temple, on the Pharoah Boat in Giza, with a competent yet also underwhelming set. Singing mostly in colloquial Jordanian Arabic, they sounded like a cross between Egyptian pop-rock bands Cairokee and Massar Egbari, but with different accents. While the band exuded a raucous energy, a strange disconnect marred their performance — it felt as if the two singers, Ahmad Zu’bi and Mahmoud Radaideh, were in two different bands. Zu’bi almost looked as though he had no place onstage at all, and would have preferred to be performing in his bedroom, while Radaideh, the band’s founder, had superior showmanship and charisma. But JadaL did not deviate much from one of Arabic rock’s well-regurgitated formulas: basic big rock chord progressions overlaid with Eastern timbres and boisterously modern lyrics.
The third act, though, were different. Fulltone gave a spectacular display of how fun, visceral and entertaining live instrumental dance music can be. Fulltone, aka Amr Khaled, an Egyptian with a background in rock, presented the best of both musical worlds in his 50-minute dance-infused set: a melodic collision of blues riffs against house hi-hats and the intensity of breakbeats. Accompanied by his brother Mada Khaled on guitar and harmonica, and Sherif al-Gharib on drums, Fulltone’s performance was visually and sonically captivating. He never let his set go far from the blues scales and timbres that would immediately follow in the next act, but Fulltone made a boat of over 500 people dance with abandon to a harmonica, a synthesizer, drums and a couple of guitars.
Headlining the evening were the Wanton Bishops: Lebanese blue grass, indie-rock heartthrobs. They have remarkable performance presence. With Nader Mansour and his many tattoos manning the microphone and harmonica, Eddy Ghosein ripping back-bending blues riffs on the guitar, and Anthony Abi Nader on drums, the set was a knee-slapping feet-shuffling celebration of a good time. Blues-rock is almost never played live in Egypt and it was surprising to see how well the crowd received it. If Nader has anything to do with it, the Wanton Bishops may succeed in popularizing an entirely new sub-genre they call “desert blues.”
It doesn’t happen often here that acts from the regional underground music scene play in commercial social spaces like bars or clubs — usually, they are confined to cultural institutes. There are just a few exceptionally programmed, international festivals each year — such as the Downtown Contemporary Arts Festival (D-CAF) and the 100LIVE. Both have given stage time to independent Egyptian musicians like the electroclash trio Wetrobots <3 Bosaina, and mahragan performers like Sadat and Figo.
There are occasional one-off events at the Cairo Jazz Club or Genaina Theater — this year during Genaina’s summer program organized by Al Mawred Al Thaqafy, for example, Arabic dream-pop poster child Maii Waleed took to the stage to open up for Jordanian indie-rock band Ahker Zapheer. But with few exceptions, such events almost always lack the crucial elements necessary for top-rate alternative, rock or indie music concerts: any sense of freedom is generally limited in culture institutions due to inadequate space (meaning audiences of more than 250 are rare), awkwardly laid out venues, and the subpar sound systems.
So the Quarter Tone Frequency launch, which happened on Thursday, was an exceedingly memorable evening, both in terms of music and the space given to audience members to freely express their reactions to the sounds coming off the stage. The monthly radio show is part of the Red Bull Music Academy (RBMA) program, a network of music workshops, festivals and events taking place each year in over 60 countries and involving 60 musicians. In the past three years it has held a series of workshops and club nights known as RBMA Bass Camp, first in Beirut and this year in Dubai. This year’s edition involved young musicians from Iran, the UAE, Egypt, Kuwait, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Jordan, Syria, India and Pakistan, who attended workshops by legends such as Just Blaze, Derrick May, and Kenny Dope.
Quarter Tone Frequency is an addition to this program, aiming to showcase the musical undergrounds of four Arab countries — Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan and the UAE — in four 15-minute segments consisting of music and talks from musicians selected from each country, presented by a local host. In Egypt’s case, the host is none other than the iconoclastic voice of former Nile FM host, Mohamed Safi, a musician deeply entrenched in the landscape of Egypt’s independent music.
For the launch, Red Bull teamed up with local events organizer Tito Kachab, mostly known for electronic dance music events organized through his company Nacelle and his uncanny ability to spot the next big DJ. Tito has helped popularize the dance music scene in Egypt while building a roster of DJs that includes Aly B, Aly Goede and Baher Eid.
Fulltone was selected to represent Egypt, Locksmith the UAE, JadaL Jordan, and the Wanton Bishops Lebanon.
Although Locksmith was likely the most experienced musician — originally from Sydney, he lives in Dubai and co-founded the DUST Collective in 2011 — his set was nothing to call home about. JadaL, formed in 2003, had an energy that almost made up for their lack of innovation. But the performances of Egypt’s Fulltone, the youngest musician in the line-up, are ever-changing, with complex melodies, a wide variety of music styles, and a bumpy electro feel that deviates from the uniform, stomping four-to-the-floor of most electronic music in Egypt. (“Life is not all about house music,” the 25-year-old says.)
The Wanton Bishops, meanwhile, were founded in 2001 and have opened for massive international acts including Lana Del Rey and Guns N’ Roses. But — young musicians take note — Mansour says they got into the scene by means of a flash performance in a Beirut dive bar. “Our beginnings were very DIY,” he adds. “In the start we barely had enough money to print CDs and stickers, but we were strategic about where, when, and how to perform.”
Though it was a mixed bag, the final two sets — dance-laced rock, blues and electronica — were a musical spectacle worth the wait. The line-up showed that the regional underground music scenes are multifaceted and constantly bringing forth new and old genres, and Red Bull proved once again that while their energy drink might be mainstream, the artists they work with are not.
The launch was a refreshing example of what can emerge with the right mix of experienced music organizers, practitioners, and corporate funding. A combination of players succeeded in creating a communal, nonjudgmental space that allowed concert-goers to explore new musical identities through contrasting genres, great sound quality, and an uninhibited atmosphere for dancing and socializing. The next event has yet to be scheduled, but in the meantime you can listen to the radio show to make your own mind up about Quarter Tone Frequency.
