Mariam Nihal

Saudi Gazette

 

There’s never been a better time to be a musician in Saudi Arabia. Music is art that provides the freedom of expression in a country where most of the population uses media to express themselves. Raising the bar for new generations of Saudi artists to aspire, the young Saudi electronic dance music producers and DJ’s have played an important role to develop and help local talent.



Saudi Arabia has always appreciated art and music for both Western and traditional (khaleeji) music. As much as Saudis love their folk music with traditional instruments like stringed “rababa,” “double-reeded ney,” “lute” and the “ud,” the new generation has managed to bring more to the scene by keeping it simple, uber and digitalized.



The new generation of Saudi producers and DJs have crafted a new sound for generations to come.



The only difference is the introduction of new industrial terms such as “turntablism,” or computer generated sampler, synthesizer and sequencer among others. This digital generation speaks ‘chorus, delay, reverb, octave and equalizer’ terminology. But not all has changed. The studios, sounds and genres of music have progressed but what has remained embedded in the country’s soul, is love for music.



Fortunately, music speaks the same language universally and the young minds have been keen on capitalizing that aspect.



Saudi Arabia’s music scene has flourished and is now pushing the boundaries of myths and disillusions.



Acknowledging the fact that art is the key to success of any vibrant culture, young Saudis broke away from stereotypes and have made a place for themselves universally.



Saudi Gazette will highlight the best of upcoming and well-established electronic music artists in the country.



The series showcases the life and work of Saudi Arabia’s contemporary music scene.



Vinyl Mode



Harris Mavromatis and Muhanned Nassar are Vinyl Mode. House music DJ’s and producers, they began their journey in 2011.



Muhanned, who started spinning music in 2005, said: “I realized that people loved my sound. My official start was in 2007 when I started playing more professionally under the alias Phenomena.



“Two years later I met Harris, with whom I share a deep interest in music. He has always been supportive to me and he has taught me a lot of important mixing techniques. Since 2010 we have been working together as a DJ duo under the alias Vinyl Mode.”



Harris started DJing professionally in 2003, in Montreal. “In 2005 I joined the McGill University radio were I got training in archiving and preparing music for radio production. In 2009, I moved to Saudi Arabia for my doctorate studies, and in 2010, after an one-year pause, I teamed up with Muhanned with a goal to provide Jeddah with a high quality, alternative, underground sound.”



Muhanned believes the perception of music in Saudi Arabia is not the ideal. “We don’t learn it at school and in my times we were even getting hit for daring to listen to music. My family has an amazing source of music from James Brown records, that my dad still has, to Prince and Madonna cassettes that my older siblings had.



“I learned music on the go, from YouTube, books, and musician friends. Internet made music more approachable to me, as I could access channels that didn’t exist here. I advanced my DJing skills by playing in different gigs at many places.



“As for the production I have gotten into it and started drowning in it when Harris and I teamed up as Vinyl Mode. Harris is a great influence to me because he taught me production and he is one of the reasons that motivated me to become a producer besides being a DJ.”



Harris comes from a European background. “I was taught music at school as part of the curriculum. I started piano classes at a very young age that lasted four years.



“At high school I got very interested in Theory of Music and attended classes for three years. As a teenager I used to record tapes with different songs for car use while being with the family.



“This hobby, along with a general interest in art, whether audio or visual, made me take music technology option classes during my undergrad years in Montreal. Montreal was an ideal place to learn mixing and production.



“There I attended numbers of workshops and tutorials from Roland and Ableton on computer music production. Since I didn’t study music here, I don’t have an opinion on the difficulties that someone who wants to learn music faces.



“Till now Jeddah has been a fertile ground for Vinyl Mode, with a crowd that respects and appreciates good music.”



Vinyl Mode is currently working toward performing in the Mediterranean, Mykonos and Sardinia and creating a niche for their sound on Saudi radio.



Hassan Ghazzawi



Born in London and raised in Jeddah, Ghazzawi is the DJ you have probably seen at one or all Red Bull events in Saudi. Ghazzawi said music is a passion and even though it is not his ambition to pursue it as a profession, he loves it since he can recall.



“Music is not my career its more of a passion. This passion started growing when I used to a attend a lot of raves and concerts by legends like Tiesto and Carl Cox and saw the amazing energy in the audiences that came from all around the world and how it made them feel like the music was talking to them because music is a universal language.



“So I wanted to make people feel that energy through my music. I started DJing and when I first started the response I got from my audiences and watching them having a great time is the reason why I am still DJ-ing.



His favorite artists are Avicii, Carl Cox , Sunnery James, Ryan Marciano and Hardwell. “It is my dream to play with one or all of them.”



Ghazzawi mixes between house, tech-house and elctro. “I add a lot of familiar acapella on them depending on the audience that I am playing for.”



Ghazzawi said his favorite Saudi producer is Omar Basaad.



He likes Vinyl Mode and appreciates Saudi DJ’s like DJ Saleem and his brother Abbas Ghazzawi “because we share the same style and we complete each other when we DJ together.”



His ultimate dream is to play in major music festivals around the world like ULTRA in Miami and EDC Las Vegas and Tomorrowland etc. Talking about the scope for Saudi artists to propel, Ghazzawi admits to be self-taught and said was grateful to his friends DJ Saleem and Madjam who helped him along the way. He said it was difficult to progress because of the lack of venues for artists to express themselves in the country.



Ghazzawi plans to start producing his own music.



Omar Basaad



Born as a frontrunner that is destined for greater things in life, Omar Basaad is Saudi Arabia’s first official EDM producer.



“I used to love music and once I started producing, it was that moment that I realized that I actually enjoy what I am doing. And that was the moment when I decided I want to make it a career. It was something I was born to do.”



He said as a DJ his biggest accomplishment was performing at one of the festivals (Sandance UAE) in front of 10,000 people. As a producer, definitely my EP VEGA!”



He added it is “every DJ’s dream to perform at Ultra Music, EDC and all these major festivals!” And for him, “Ultra is a dream!” 



Basaad said he would like to collaborate with Steve Angello, “the legends daft punk.”



When asked how he learned music and how difficult it was to progress in the region, he said it was not an easy journey.



“Been in the studios in Turkey and working with other producers back in the days, is how I developed myself as an artist. In Saudi, it’s a really dead scene. You don’t have enough studio recourses, or professional people to be around.



“So it is hard to develop oneself, although these days everything is available online. But in able to be creative you’ve got to be surrounded by creative people and professionals too.”



Currently, Basaad is busy in the studio working on new tracks and collaborating with different talents. 

 

To be continued...