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The Outer - Official Video
'The Outer' is the first single from the upcoming project between globally renowned vocalist Natacha Atlas and production partner Samy Bishai, featuring composer, musician and sound artist Jason Singh. Exploring themes of societal dystopia, ’The Inner & The Outer’ is an emotional and contemplative musical reaction to the challenges society has faced since the start of the pandemic.
Our single ‘The Outer’ opens the musical project with a relentlessly groove-driven digital fable, an exotic cousin of Massive Attack. The song juxtaposes throughout - from the menace of dark analogue bass synths and distorted beatboxing to Natacha’s transcendental flow of melodies, soaring over a bed of Alcyona Mick's cutup piano motifs.
This duality can be found in every aspect of the upcoming album; angular dissonance/melodic resolution, analogue/digital production techniques, working alone/collaboratively..
‘The Outer’ sees Natacha boldly progressing her musical journey through new realms, deftly sidestepping nostalgia. Evolving from her electrifying 90s-era Transglobal Underground sound, she opts instead for her blend of jazz-infused 21st century electronics, providing the perfect opportunity to collab with old friend Jason Singh, whose uniquely varied skills have him composing all over the world, for the BBC and many others.
As a writing team, Atlas & Bishai have brilliantly orchestrated the seamless integration of Middle Eastern maqam vocabularies with hiphop, jazz and electronica, with Bishai's arrangement and production skills working invisibly behind the scenes, tying it all together. The resultant sonic synergy is unparalleled in its effortless transition of various styles to create a complete new sound, which remains eerily familiar; the memory of a sound unheard.
'The Outer' explores the fragmentation of a pandemic society - the extroverted and externalised emotional responses to the power, influence and corruption of the outside world: the virus, the media, the powers that be... and all the feelings that come with that: isolation, disorientation, destabilisation, displacement, mistrust, fear, anger…
The musical experimentation which places this album at the crossroads of Middle Eastern sounds, electronica and jazz is unique, intriguing and genuinely beautiful - whilst imbuing 'The Inner & The Outer' with a fresh and contemporary sound that claims this musical terra nova as its own.
Natacha Atlas is an internationally-acclaimed artist with one of the world’s most distinctive voices. Long known for synthesising western and middle eastern vocal traditions with mind-blowing dexterity, Natacha’s latest work sees her push vocal and musical boundaries even further by effortlessly weaving jazz traditions into her already unique blend.
It is thus unsurprising that Natacha’s output is as rich as it is diverse. In the past, she has worked with Peter Gabriel, Nitin Sawhney, Nigel Kennedy, Indigo Girls, Jean-Michel Jarre, and Ibrahim Maalouf, to name but a few, while, most recently, Natacha has been collaborating with the likes of Omar Sosa and Paolo Fresu, whilst co-composing (with frequent collaborator Samy Bishai) the score for Herve Koubi’s 2019 contemporary dance creation “Odyssey".
Over the years, Natacha’s exceptional talent has been repeatedly recognised by her peers and fans alike in the form of a host of music awards (incl. a French ‘Victoire’) along with numerous invitations to be the star vocalist at major events (such as the Millennium concert at the pyramids in Egypt in 2000 with Jean-Michel Jarre) and to appear on the scores and soundtracks of numerous Hollywood blockbusters, incl. Sex & the City 2, The Hulk, Kingdom of Heaven, Brick Lane and Sahara.
