Band of the Week: Fulltone

For the past two or three years, Egypt’s electronic dance music scene has been utterly dominated by a cold, four-to-the-floor, synthetic-based brand of deep house. Packed with mind-warping sub-bass, semi-complex melodies, pulsating synth lines and sparse use of repetitive, mellifluous vocals, the deep house craze has become entirely boring and is saturated by DJs painfully indistinguishable from one another. The redundancy in their repertoires is enough to make you avoid the dance music scene altogether, opting instead for house parties where you can better control the soundsphere.

But every so often you go out and you actually get lucky. That was certainly the case with last Thursday’s dynamite performance by Egyptian producer, DJ and guitarist Amr Khaled. Performing under his musical guise, “Fulltone,” the 25-year-old is one of the most refreshing, danceable and downright fun performances I’ve seen in Egypt this year. While Fulltone is primarily a solo project, Khaled often alters the composition of this performance based on the atmosphere of his gig. On Thursday, Fulltone emerged on stage of The Temple boat in Giza strapped to an electric guitar, within arm’s reach of his synthesizer. Next to him was his brother Mada Khaled on electric guitar and harmonica, and drummer Sherif El Gharib. Fulltone’s show was part of a multi-act concert put on by Red Bull, and organized by local event producer and sound engineer, Tito Kachab. The 50-minute set was breathtaking. For some that meant only being out of breath from dancing. The combination of live instrumental music with the elements of electronic dance music coming out of Kachab’s legendary “Funktion One” speakers, literally rocked the boat.    

The dance floor was packed with sweating bodies moving to the rhythms of rock riffs and swaying blindly to bumpy basslines and hypnotic hi-hats from the live drums. Segments of the set were reminiscent of the 80s synthpop of Depeche Mode or Orchestra Maneuver. Later they seamlessly morphed into disco, funk, fleeting traces of psychedelic and blues riffs against quasi-breakbeats. While it could be even more lively to hear Fulltone use slightly more vocal effects, maybe upping the droned-out lyrics, the set was a dramatic display of the warmth and suppleness possible in properly composed music that is played live rather than just programmed.