Emel Mathlouthi – Everywhere We Looked Was Burning //Partisan Records// (Released 27th September)

Description

£20.99 – LP

Tunisian-born and New York-based experimental singer Emel Mathlouthi has announced the release of her new album Everywhere We Looked Was Burning. For the first time, Emel sings almost entirely in English after previously only recording a handful of tracks in the language. The choice was informed by settling in New York with her family, discovering the “essential imagery” of poets Rainer Maria Rilke, T.S. Elliot, and John Ashbury, and “thinking back to how music in English was so important to me growing up”. She initially rented a house in Woodstock, NY and set off to “write about nature as well as the beauty and struggle of these times”.

Emel’s last album Ensen (2017) was produced with Valgeir Sigurðson (Sigur Ros, Feist, Bjork), and earned profiles with NPR Music, Pitchfork, The Fader, The Guardian, Brooklyn Magazine, Nowness, WNYC and lots more. She was also recently featured in NPR Music’s ‘200 Best Songs By 21st Century Women’ feature.

Emel rose to fame after a video of her performing her song “Kelmti Horra (My Word is Free)” generated millions of views throughout the 2011 Tunisian Revolution. That song served as the anthem for the Arab Spring, gave its name to her debut album Kelmti Horra, and took her to the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize Concert where she performed it to thunderous applause.

Tracklisting:

1. Rescuer
2. Footsteps
3. Womb
4. Wakers Of The Wind
5. Merrouh
6. This Place
7. A Quiet Home
8. Ana Wayek
9. Does Anybody Sleep
10. Everywhere We Looked Was Burning