About this item

DJ Haram's debut album 'Beside Myself' is about the survival of the spirit in day to day struggle. Following on from her collaboration with Moor Mother as 700 Bliss on 'Nothing to Declare', here she is joined by a swarm of collaborators, collectively navigating pain and rage, and in occasional moments of joyful respite, mocking the strife. Haram describes herself as a “multidisciplinary propagandist, contemporary anti-authoritarian Arab, gendered labor class, god fearing atheist” who makes “anti-format, audio propaganda, anti-lifestyle, immersive sonics”. Her music attests to this, as she brings in friends and collaborators, from MC's Armand Hammer, Bbymutha, SHA RAY, Moor Mother, and Dakn, through to co-producers August Fanon, Egyptian producer El Kontessa, and Jersey Club producer Kay Drizz, trumpeter Aquiles Navarro, and guitarist Abdul Hakim Bilal. It's immediately identifiable as her work, but simultaneously unclassifiable, finding equal space in its dusty live production for Jersey Club, punk noise, Central Asian and Middle Eastern Percussion, synths, 808's and lurking, rumbling bass. Often central to this is her own performance of unflinching sorrowful verses, comparable to the poets Audrey Lorde or Ai in tone and Kim Gordon in context, examining the material and the abstract in equal measure. Her grungy futurism offers no easy resolutions, yet the drama and catharsis it presents is rarely so defiantly delivered.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Clattering percussion, glitched vocals and walls of tense synths coalesce into something that's both wildly expressive and deeply rooted in club and live music culture. A perfect mix of experimental hip-hop, noise and electronica.

TRACK LISTING

1. Walking Memory
2. Remaining Ft. Dakn & Aquiles Navarro
3. Fishnets Ft. Bbymutha & Sha Ray & August Fanon
4. Lifelike Ft. Moor Mother & 700 Bliss
5. Voyeur
6. Do U Love Me Ft. Kayy Drizz
7. Stenography Ft. Armand Hammer
8. IDGAF Ft. Abdul Hakim Bilal
9. Badass Ft. Carmen Nebula
10. Loneliness Epidemic
11. Sahel Ft. El Kontessa
12. Distress Tolerance
13. Who Needs Enemies When These Are Your Allies?
14. Deep Breath (An Ending)