Ain Horus – Risala Min Shahed Ayan [Modular mind]

Osman Arabi launches his newest project Ain Horus (Arabic: حورسعین, The Eye of Horus) with the18-track album ‘Risala Min Shahed Ayan’ (Arabic: عیانشاھدمنرسالة, “A Letter From AnEyewitness”) on Lebanese experimental label Modular Mind. Not only a musical reinterpretation, but a “cinematic audiobook” of the 1996 cult film ‘Al Nom Fil Assal’: ‘Risala Min Shahed Ayan’ is a sample-based album by Osman Arabi as Ain Horus.

The entire album consists of samples and sounds from the 1996 Egyptian cult film ‘Al Nom Fil Assal’ (Arabic: العسلفىالنوم, English: “A Deep Sleep” or “Sweet Oblivion”). The satire featureslegendary comedian Adel Emam, directed by the great Sharif Arafa and scored by Omar Khayrat, the film tackles topics like sexual impotence, corruption, ignorance and frustration in Egyptian society which led it to become one of a kind audio-visual experience in the Arab world.

Osman Arabi describes the format of his album as an “18-track cinematic audiobook”. The artist draws all the sonic elements from the film that he processes, arranges and unfolds like scenes from a childhood memory. Creating a so-called cinematic audiobook is Arabi’s approach to the remains of a forgotten pan-Arabic cultural phenomenon that he intends to modernize in his own musical language. Within the composition, he transforms each track into a scene. His musical reinterpretation is an homage to the very essence of the film that revolves around the question: What does the spirit of a world that has gone mad look like?

Osman Arabi is a guitarist, composer, producer and sound designer from El-Mina, Tripoli, Lebanon, who lives and works in Berlin. A unique figure in the international noise and industrial music scene, Arabi is especially known for pioneering noise and black metal waves in Lebanon in the early 2000’s.

His work elicits images of desolate industrial landscapes and shamanistic rites. From his beginnings in black metal, Arabi has progressed through different genres, such as dark ambient, industrial, tribal, psychedelic, electro-acoustic, power electronics and noise. His many projects have included Seeker, Kafan, Veinen, Shamanic Death Trance, The Ritual Inclusion Of Code, 20.SV, as well as nihilist Dutch collective Stalaggh. In 2000, Arabi stopped performing live — vanishing into the underground, not resurfacing until 2009. For the past decade, Arabi has been developing — in complete secrecy — his “occult guitar” playing, based on the sigil work of Austin Osman Spare.

Release date: April 2^nd, 2023.