Hanni El Khatib

Head In The Dirt

Image of Hanni El Khatib - Head In The Dirt
Record Label
Innovative Leisure

About this item

Hanni El Khatib is back with his second album ‘Head In The Dirt’ produced by Dan Auerbach of the Grammy Award-winning band The Black Keys. Hanni El Khatib’s breakout debut ‘Will The Guns Come Out’ led to all kinds of success – not least having his music licensed to HBO and Showtime television series, and adverts for Nike and Captain Morgan. In 2012, however, he showed up to record his second album with just the clothes on his back — no guitar, no fancy almost-finished demos, and only about three weeks time to get from start to finish. While on tour, he'd met Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys in a Paris bar. After some whisky, they decided to partner up in Auerbach’s Nashville studio. The idea was to erase everything Hanni had become comfortable with and to make an album out of only raw instinct and inspiration. The result is ‘Head In The Dirt’, in which Hanni El Khatib makes the entire history of rebel music his own over eleven tracks. There are cut-to-the-bone rhythm ‘n’ blues songs (‘Save Me’) and overcranked Stooges-style stompers (‘Family’). There are bottomless Black Sabbath riff-outs (the back half of ‘Pay No Mind’) and dubbed-out garage rock tunes (‘Nobody Move’) that call up the spirits of the Clash and the Equals. His ‘Low’ is just one Andre 3000 remix away from a club anthem, ‘Penny’ is a stick-in-your-head pop hit, and ‘Sinking In The Sand’ is a freak-out headbanger.

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