Nozhet El Nofous
A music project by Nancy Mounir
2022 - As a researcher; I was part of Nancy Mounir’s debut music project and album, Nozhet El Nofous, which is a remarkable communion with ghosts. Moody, hypnotic, and sneakily catchy, the album—whose title means “Promenade of the Souls'' in Arabic—explores microtonality, non-metered rhythms, and bold vulnerability through a musical dialogue between Mounir’s arrangements and the sounds of archival recordings of once-famed singers from Egypt at the turn of the 20th century. Adding her ambient arrangements over voices haunted with passion and desire as she creates a sound that is warmly familiar but utterly new.
On the album, Mounir slips into the gaps left by the lost frequencies of the aging recordings, finding space for counterpoint and harmony in a traditional sound built on monophony. Elegant melodies unfold in measured gestures as Mounir—who plays most of the instruments herself —revels in the plaintive intonations and brash lyrics of the departed singers. With layers enmeshed together, it’s at times hard to pin down when the past ends and the present begins, but beneath it all is a liberating attitude of defiance that feels timeless.