"The original soundtrack I used from Cities & Memory's archive was recorded on a street in Cairo at sunset, outside the Marriott Hotel and Omar Khayyam casino, on Saray El Gezira Street. The famous Gezirah Palace was completed in 1869 by Khedive Ismail, to host dignitaries for the opening of the Suez Canal that year. When I first listened to this piece I heard, among the sounds of car horns and the evening prayer call, the sound of footsteps running down the street and away, and a sharp gasp of breath. The whipping wind in the microphone sounded like a jinn or an Afreet, plural Afareet. It reminded me of my favourite song El Shawarea Hawadeet (the streets are tales) by El Masreyeen from 1977. Lonely streets echoing with memories, stories and Afareet.
"In the final piece, you can hear layers of sounds from different eras. The song Al Bulbul Gani (the nightingale came to me) recorded in Cairo in 1906, written by Abd al-hayy Hilmi; the sounds of drumming used in the Cairo Zar women’s ritual by the group Mazaher – a ritual to try to find accommodation with demons that have taken over a woman’s body. You can hear too, strange sounds of a furious female jinn screaming, shouting and banging at each outrageous sentence from British prime minister Anthony Eden, in his public address in 1956 during the Suez Crisis, where he attempts to justify Britain’s bombing of Egypt. Oil is the justification for everything.
"As this Cairo tale unfolds, the Arabian riff, or “Melodia Arabe”, sinuously weaves between the Zar drumming. Composed in the 1800’s, the Arabian riff, also known as The Streets of Cairo, was a little Orientalist ditty that supposedly evoked the exotic Arab. The quote I am reading is from the 1899 gothic novel, Pharos The Egyptian, by Guy Boothby. It was one of many gothic horror stories of revenge by an angry Egyptian mummy or demon, a fear that haunted the Victorians during this era."
Credits:
The fragments of the Arabian riff in different versions are from here, with a Creative Commons licence:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Arabian_melody.ogg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Arabian_song.ogg |
Cairo street sounds reimagined by Salma Ahmad Caller.