Presented to me in the following six tracks offered a diversity of sound that I readily welcomed upon receiving this package from Woodwork Recordings. Found here were squelching timbres and artificial artefacts that summoned a kinetic energy I thoroughly enjoyed, those of which I will delve into greater detail with the following account.

A bit aside from the popular stuff of Acid Arab like tracks “Gul l’Abi” and “Stil”, I stumbled upon a mix they did for Ninja Tune where I discovered mahraganat, Egyptian electronic dance music which takes a big part from the folk elements, especially evident in the percussions and synths. Since then I’ve stumbled upon some hardcore mahraganat music that my friends would seriously say it is completely equal to turbo-folk music, not realizing that even in rock music there is good and bad stuff. This is something like that, but nevertheless the whole style of this Egyptian styled music can have many similarities with Slavic folk and highly pitched synths and bad vocals are no help when debating this with friends.

“Well, if you talk to the average teenager of today and you ask them what it is about rock n’ roll music that they like, the first thing they say will be “the beat, the beat, the beat…”

I’ve been simmering on this Red Axes album for about a week now, and I would like to let it be known that upon first listen, I wasn’t entirely sure what I made of it. Sure, the hooks are catchy, the songs are structured appropriately. I basically felt that the effort was quite inoffensive and somewhat on-the-nose about what it was trying to convey. Now, don’t get me wrong, that’s not to say I didn’t enjoy the record, I definitely did, but nothing really grabbed me straight away. That was, of course, until I meditated on this record more and more, and I must say, I’ve actually grown to treasure this record as a slice of fun, sleaze and character. There is definitely more taking place here than what would initially meet the eye.