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Kareem Samara

Oct 15, 2024 By Nick Roseblade Web Exclusive

Sometimes a little bit of help can go a long way. Tonight, at The Rose Hill was the first in a trilogy of events, with funding from the Arts Council. The night was called Re / Shape / Sound and featured one of my favourite musicians working at the moment, No Home, along with I am Fya and Kareem Samara. The nights are to celebrate artists working in the experimental music scene and to readdress the stereotypes attached to it. You know, how it’s not ALL white men screaming into contact mics. The artists tonight are all artists from the global majority and make music that is experimental AF but not quite in the traditional constraints.

I Am Fya (pronounced Fire), was first up. This felt apt as she was one third behind Re / Shape / Sound. As she took to the stage, she told us that this wasn’t going to be her usual set, even though she has a new album coming, but instead it was going to be something different. These are a “Series of songs about love” she said before launching into her set. Opening with an Ertha Kitt sample and a blistering bassline it was obvious that this was going to be a different experimental night. As the song progresses the melodies got catchier and the bass filthier. Over this Fya song about love, loss and redemption. Throughout the set lyrics like “Falling in love with myself” and “I’m worth it” didn’t come off as arrogant, but instead tender and, well, loving. The message seemed to be you have to love yourself before you can love anyone else. Behind the music throughout were visuals. Some were of waterfalls, an R&B dancer and the aforementioned Ertha Kitt. They gave the music a deeper context and they looked pretty cool. The music was bass heavy and at one point rattling could be heard. I was under sure if it was the air conditioner on the ceiling, the windows or a collection of empty bottles and glasses being rattled. Either way it was impressive. When her set was over, I Am Fya took the rounds of applause before bigging up who was to come next.

No Home’s set was an exercise tonal guitar, stark vocals and guttural walls of noise. The set opened with a poem by June Jordan about the genocide in Palestine. After that, No Home played a new song. Massive bass was the order of the day. This was a new sound from No Home. Normally their songs have bass in them, but the bass isn’t the focal point. Here it was front and centre. This was followed by ‘Emerald Green Mirror’ taken from their last album Young Professional. Live it exploded from the speakers in ways the recorded version just couldn’t ever do. After that was another Young Professional song ‘Monkey Brain’. The sounds swelled around us in a slightly claustrophobic way. Again, it was far more powerful, and impressive, than the recorded version which, for the record, is no slouch! The guitar playing was hypnotic and drone like. It pulled you in while the vocals lay on top of you like a lead blanket. The rest of the set came from Young Professional, apart from the final two songs. ‘Exile’ was from her seminal album Fucking Hell and the deep cut ‘Who Cares’ from the debut album Self Preservation. Again, the live versions surpassed their original recorded form to create something You didn’t just feel in the chest but in your head too. Throughout No Home’s impassioned lyrics cut you to your core and leave you broken after. But there were moments of hilarity. The lyric “I say I’m tired / My best friend doesn’t believe me / Vitamin C deficiency” and “Communist friends get married / Where’s your compass now” cracked me up. No Home is one of the singular, and important, artists working in the UK at the moment. The music is stark, and uncomfortable, but so is society at times, but if you meet No Home on their terms you’ll find massive rewards, and even bigger hooks, from the music.

After a short break, Kareem Samara took to the stage. His set wasn’t broken up into songs, it was one long 30-minute soundscape. After thanking No Home for reading the poem he said, in regard to Palestine having “Hopes hard”. Then he launched into his set. He started playing some chimes, that he then looped before Arabic chants were laid over them. Once the soundscape was simmering nicely, he picked up his oud. The rhythms were hypnotic. Then the oud got looped, relooped, and then looped again for good measure until it was an intricate ball spinning in front of us. As the set progressed it started to get more aggressive, pissed off and generally bad tempered. The pinnacle of this was when he picked the oud up, normally a delicate instrument, and rubbed the strings on the ceiling. This was one of the most abrasive uses of a stringed instrument I’d seen for a while. I was reminded of a punk gig in Bournemouth in the early 2000s when a guitarist stabbed his guitar into a ceiling tile. Pulled it out and then had it attached to his guitar for the rest of the set. Here, however, Samara just wanted the sounds of the attack, and none of the destruction. Near the end another vocal sample, this time from Ghassan Kanafani, entered the set. “It’s not a conflict. It’s a liberation movement fighting for justice”. This was looped. With each loop the word became more powerful, and slightly garbled, as the sounds swelled around them. When his set was over Samara just stood there. Soaking it in. He then gave praise to I Am Fya, No Home and the resistance to the war in Palestine.

After Samara had cleared the stage, I Am Fya started playing banger, after banger, after banger and the party really began. After an intense evening of music people wanted an excuse to socialise and dance. As I left the party was in full swing and felt like a success. Let’s hope that the next two events are filled with such diverse sounds, positive messages and bangers at the end. Time will tell but if you ask for a little bit of help you get massive results.