The Electronic Man
Yousef Kawar's new album pushes the boundaries of music with found sounds and rock 'n' roll—but what does this offbeat record say about its maker?
If you were to run into Yousef Kawar, it would likely be at Makan, shooting for an experimental video with his little camcorder. When you don’t see him, he’s probably out somewhere in the city, or outside of it, capturing different sounds before getting back to his studio and delving into his world of synthetic manipulation to produce new pieces of electronic music.
In May, Kawar released his first album, Electronic Genes, launching it at Makan in an event that combined his music with video art. He produced it by himself, creating nine original pieces, each one with a distinct feel to it. “I take very good care of the details,” says Kawar, and his pieces reflect that. The only live instruments he used were guitar and bass, along with the ambient sounds he recorded and the electronics.
Kawar is not a stranger to the alternative music scene in Amman. He’s been working as a musician and composer for more than 10 years, mainly on film soundtracks and personal electronic music experiments. He doesn’t perform live much because he feels he needs to have the right circumstances and environment for the kind of music he makes, which he defines as electronic downtempo with touches of rock, jazz and classical.
Each track is different, but Kawar says there’s an element of darkness in all of them, which to those who know him is a bit surprising. “Most people say that my music is different than my personality,” he says, “I’m a fun guy, and not dark, although everyone has a dark side.”
Kawar was more into rock guitar when he was younger, before eventually shifting to electronic music. “I was sick of the sound of traditional instruments and wanted to experiment with new sounds, synthetically made,” he says. But his main influences remain guitar players like Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, as well as Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jeff Beck. In the electronic music arena he finds his muses in little-known underground figures that he discovers through Internet music communities.
Images and visual representations are very important to Kawar and are an integral part of his shows, such as his performance at the 100Live Electronic Music Festival in Amman last year. His video art and visual representations are abstract, just like the music itself. It is music that is inspired by his inner world, he says, rather than by his external surroundings and experiences. “The fact that I live in Amman doesn’t have a lot of influence on my music,” he says. “I don’t go out much and I don’t mingle with people much.”
Kawar also defied plenty of musical traditions. He doesn’t let the guitar or vocals be the main instrument—some pieces don’t even have a set beat but are just pure experiments with sound.
Electronic Genes took eight months to make and now Kawar is back to working on film music, but he says that if the circumstances were right he would like to play the songs live. “I would like this kind of music to become more popular,” he says.
Related Links
- More about Yousef Kawar
- Visit the album Electronic Genes
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