Band of the week: Booma

I’m sitting at a friend’s apartment in Brooklyn, New York, watching the snow fall outside the window while thinking of transience. My friend and I are both preparing to depart, her to her home in Venezuela, me to Washington DC for the holidays, although I only just arrived to New York a few days ago from Cairo.

While we do our respective work at opposite ends of the room, I plug my computer into her giant speakers in search of this week’s Mada Mix. I pretty much know who it is — the Egyptian musician Ahmed Abdel Aziz and his solo EP “Depart” — but sometimes it takes listening outside of your own ears to hear the music less subjectively, and know for sure.

Released this August under the name of his solo performance project, “Booma” (which means “owl” in Arabic), the five-track EP is an evocative, deeply personal journey through a soundscape that crosses through many genres, yet maintains a fluidity, consistency and an adventurous lushness of sound that can be found in many EPs that have come out of Egypt this year.

“It’s basically what happened and what was going on in my life throughout 2011,” Booma says. “There are samples of the revolution and such, but it has nothing to do with the revolution — I was just trying to create a timeline of what was happening around me — it had nothing to do with the revolution, nor am I interested in writing political shit. Mostly it’s about my friends and I leaving Egypt, which was lousy.”

Booma incorporates elements from various left-field musical genres from the past couple of decades, including drum and bass, electronica, avant-garde jazz, ambient and white noise, TV sound clips, indie rock, and experimental electronic music. Largely instrumental, with sparse vocals on the opening track, “Depart (Part 1)” and the follow up, “Summer Came,” the album is almost entirely guitar-based, yet Booma’s production savvy and post-rock sensibility allow it to move forward anachronistically, with deconstructed melodies and insidious dance rhythms.

“Summer Came” is reminiscent of 1980s synth-pop bands like Depeche Mode, but the song slightly misses the mark with its clean vocals. Overall, it’s the more instrumental-heavy compositions like “Loss and Closure” and “Depart (Part 1)” that stand out. Booma says his next EP will have more vocal effects and less polished lyrics, which could be an interesting direction, mixed with his unique cross-genre compositions. He also mentions that the new album, which should be released by April 2014, will feature fewer guitars and more synthesizers as it reflects an entirely different moment in his life (his recent departure to South Africa).    

As the EP nears its an end, the mood of the music continues to reverberate around the white warehouse walls of my friend’s apartment — the ethereal yet lush feeling dribbles across the ceiling’s red pipes and bounces off the segments of exposed purple and grey bricks. After not speaking or looking up at each other for the duration of the album, my friend finally turns toward me and asks, “Who is this?”

“It’s an Egyptian dude named Booma,” I reply.

“It’s good, I really like it. Where can I find it?”

“Peace, glad to hear — I’ll send you his links...”

Soon after, I depart, and so does she.