Rising Egyptian producers Electroneya and Martina have recently joined forces on a new post-club project, ‘Mārid’, which serves as the debut launch of Barcelona-based studio Les Shapeshifters.
Constructed as a five-act play, the track follows the rebellious journey of a protagonist named Mārid, a disobedient jinn in Islamic folklore. The track’s intro features aggressive noise textures that represent angels screaming, before morphing into a cacophony of danceable pulsating basslines and abrasive synths as we reach the catharsis peak of Mārid’s downfall, exploring notions of ascension and disruption.
“Electroneya came up with the concept of ‘Mārid’, and because I have a background in theatre, we thought of turning the music piece into a play of five acts,” Martina tells SceneNoise. “I was inspired by Umru and Rami Abdir’s percussion as well as the melodies of the Italian techno group Datura whilst making the track”, she adds.
The track’s intricate meshes elements from 90s rock, alternative and post-punk, and sounds from Madonna’s album ‘Ray of Light’, crafting a herbal infusion of different music influences where all intersect at the same time, often emphasising energetic shifts of turbulence through polyrhythmic percussion and syncopated drum patterns.
“The track came in a whim honestly, as me, Martina, and the founder of Les Shapeshifters, Laila Saber, were exchanging ideas about giving the song a more sentient essence to make its structure more symbolic to that of a deity,” Electroneya tells SceneNoise. “We optimally settled on Marid as our underworld critter, as he turned out to be one of the first universal anarchists.”
Les Shapeshifters, a newfound creative studio and music hub based in Barcelona, emerged out of five-year artistic research into hybrid storytelling, defying the rigidity of creative identity, and instead calling for entangled stories, tentacular sounds, improvisation and playful experimentation. “Our space champions slow creativity, one that doesn’t abide by the capitalist hurry and overrides its fast greeds and amassing furies with hybrid, slower stories of making and unmaking,” Laila Saber, Founder of Les Shapeshifters, tells SceneNoise.
The studio’s approach is centred on pairing artists with different musical backgrounds and techniques from across the globe who have never worked together before, giving them a space to experiment and collaborate by meeting at the crossroads of each other’s musical practices.
