Pause​/​stutter​/​uh​/​repeat

"The results can be violent, though never unmusical, as ABADIR lets a rich stream of ideas flash past in a sequence of build-ups, climaxes and false starts." (Resident Advisor) "A striking work of hi-def sound design, which intends to explore the intricacies of the human voice, and the significance that can be found in the oddities and interruptions to be found in our speech patterns." (DJ Mag) "Influenced by the rhythms of human language, this is the actual promise of “deconstruction”, a term so often and loftily bandied about yet so rarely done with such engagement." (CDM) "Richly varied post-club landscapes with various flows that are especially pleasant to listen to, but to which you can also dance when grime-like rhythms appear, before moving on to headbanging during the more intense passages in this playful basket full of language collages." (Gonzo) "The record is a culmination of the Egyptian artist’s graduate thesis, which mediates on communication processes via glitch and ambient sonics." (AQNB) "In his sound design based on microediting and glitches, ABADIR focuses on speech fillers, usually omitted in interview transcriptions, repurposing them as intricate details of this album." (Ma3azef) "Pause/Stutter/Uh/Repeat is a canvas for lightweight, cinematic compositions where tension is accumulated and dramatically released in a continuous, exciting process of abstraction and re-contextualization." (Paynomindtous) "ABADIR’s beats sound like they’ve been launched from a sling, spinning through the air before snapping to a halt, electronics and voices endlessly collapsing under their own weight." (the Quietus) "Post-club experimentalism rendered in high definition, shards of brightness and vocal samples warped and inverted beyond recognition go some distance to offset ABADIR’s digital metallurgy." (If-Only) ABADIR's Pause/Stutter/Uh/Repeat (GEN046) is a collection of gravity-defying tension build-ups and releases, crammed grimey patterns and blasting overdriven kicks setting the stage for an acousmatic, digital treatment of the human voice as a raw sound source. Vocal snippets, elusive traces of dialogs, ghost notes between utterances, modelled or resampled choirs all form the basis of this approach. On these tracks, high definition focused sound beams, charred high-res textures are complemented by intricate drum rolls sizzling, rushing up, bending beyond their breaking point joined by the clang of metallic, synthetic objects colliding, deforming, rupturing. The release is accompanied by a handful of remixes, including a staggering diagonalization by FRKTL, a bass heavy club ready edit by Ice_Eyes, a frenetic, bouncy reimagination by Fausto Mercier and a luminous big drum-powered rendition by ZULI. // Rami Abadir about the album “Uh, um, ah, urgh, so, well, I mean, indeed—in everyday conversation, we stutter, pause, prolong a syllable beyond its actual length, sigh, click our tongues and lips, laugh, and repeat. Such interjections utterances and fillers may be considered superfluous to our interactions, even interrupting our flow of ideas. But, if we listen closely, we’ll find them loaded with deeper layers of meaning and affect: hesitation, thrill, discomfort, uncertainty, surprise, shyness, contemplation, or the agonizing search for meaning. As I extracted those recurrent utterances from supposedly coherent conversations, and the more I listened to those shards of sound in isolation, I came to the realisation that our semantic exchange has always been fragmented. This overpowering sense of fragmentation inspired a collage structure and infused the production with a deconstructed, dramatic and cinematic sound. In this sense, the collage technique in composition reflects how we construct meaning out of tiny utterances in our speech. “Pause/Stutter/Uh/Repeat” is a distillation of overlooked communication, implicit expression and elusive meaning, all of which could be reduced in a one-syllable utterance. The end result was a canvas of revisited meaning. I submitted this work as my graduation project for the MA program “Digital Media” at the University of Arts Bremen.” // ABADIR's bio AِBADIR (Rami Abadir) is a music producer and sound designer born in Cairo, Egypt. His work focuses on experimental, glitch and ambient music, and he's one half of the duo 0N4B. Together with the visual artists Nurah Farahat and Islam Shabana, he co-founded the audio/visual collective "Mapping Possibilities", which has been active in promoting A/V events since 2016. ABADIR is also the editor of the electronic music section of the Arabic music webzine Ma3azef, where he also contributes as a writer on critical theory, music history, reviews and interviews. Previously solo released on Hush Hush Records, Yerevan Tapes, Kaer‘Uiks, D.M.T. Records, and through 0N4B on Kaer’Uiks, ANBA, Aural Electronics.