DESPITE most music nowadays being downloaded, with the occasional trendy vinyl album being released, one Bahraini musician has bounced back on track with a sell-out cassette tape!
The first batch of Retro-rocker Ala Ghawas’ latest album Brouvat Mout (‘A Death Rehearsal’ in Arabic) has already sold out and he has reordered new supplies to keep up with the demand.
“All the Arabic music I listened to when I was a child were on cassettes, so I felt it would be a fitting homage to release my new recording on cassette too,” the 40-year-old musician told the GDN.
He wasn’t sure how many people still had cassette players but there seem to be quite a few fans out there feeling sentimental and nostalgic … you never know, it might catch on!
From the early 1970s to mid-2000s, the cassette was one of the two most common formats for prerecorded music, first alongside the LP record and later the compact disc (CD).
Mr Ghawas detoured from his 15-year discography with his first-ever Arabic album and ninth overall … and only one thus far released on cassette. His first batch of 1,000 cassettes were quickly snapped up and his second batch is now on sale.
“It felt like a tribute to that beautiful time. I have even laid down the artwork in retro-style as if the album was released in the 1980s,” he added.
Mr Ghawas has previously dabbled in alternate mediums, having released his 2017 album Tryst on vinyl, citing the release of music on CDs as ‘pointless’ in this day and age.
“People will listen to the music on digital platforms anyway, so you need to give them better reasons to make the effort and buy the album,” he explained.
His latest release explores death in all its forms, from the passing of a person to the demise of an idea and the expiry of a romance.
This album is also the first time that the singer-songwriter is stepping out from behind the mask of English to create a popular recording in Arabic.
“Arabic is my mother language, having been born and raised in Bahrain with my entire education in Arabic public schools,” he added. “The first music I was ever introduced to was in Arabic – the likes of Fairouz, Abdulhaleem Hafez, Khaled Alshaikh and others.”
However, in his early twenties, Mr Ghawas picked up the acoustic guitar and found himself drawn to the likes of Western stars Jackson Browne, Bob Dylan and Jeff Buckley.
He was ‘impressed and obsessed with the freedom these artists had in the way they expressed their ideologies and reflected on their personal experiences,’ and, in particular, how they explored raw emotions, romance, social issues, traumas and clashing political points of view.
In his younger years, pop songs in the Arab world appeared to be mostly consumed by ‘generic romance and occasional patriotism’.
So when he started singing and writing his own songs, he found English was the natural choice to express himself.
As he grew older, the musician got bolder and 2020 was the inflection point, where he finally felt ready to release music in Arabic.
“It took me 16 years to get to this point and in 2020, I experienced major losses, especially the passing of my grandmother,” he added.
“That’s when everything fell into place. I was ready to switch back to Arabic while the experience of death and mourning for loved ones was all consuming.”
The album has been written, for the most part, in standardised or ‘fusha’ modern Arabic, building on Mr Ghawas’ inner literature and reading choices over the years.
The primary exception is the song Mashmoom (a variety of the basil plant in Arabic), which has been written in Bahraini dialect. It was also the hardest song to write since Mr Ghawas was not used to the language challenge.
But the effort paid off and many have told the musician that it will be the track he will be remembered for in the years to come.
When asked what it was like to write in Arabic, after having written in English for eight albums, Mr Ghawas explained: “When I write and sing in Arabic I feel my identity is fully intact. I feel whole.
“Throughout the eight albums I released in English I felt there was always something missing. I’ve always known it and I know it more now.
“I love where I am now and I love that next time I’ll be on stage I’ll sing my own original songs in Arabic and in English. I love how I’m fully embracing my identity clash and making the most out of it.”
Mr Ghawas started writing the songs for Brouvat Mout in December 2020 and went into the studio to record just five months later. Isa Najem co-produced the album with him.
For more details, follow @alaghawas on Instagram.
naman@gdnmedia.bh
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