Courtesy of Marcia Kempf

❝Aya Metwalli (b. 1988) is a vocalist who spits the anguish out—a cat with a broken tail born of Cairo’s heat and smog. She grew up amidst the kind of noise that gnaws at your bones. Car horns punch like brass knuckles. Shouting vendors wake the dead. Discordant calls to prayer burst through busted loudspeakers like orchestras that never tune. The piano offered her a different melody, but the guitar taught her how to bleed and write for the loners and the lost. ‘Til she traded strings for static, turning her melancholic musings into gut-wrenching lament. The Guardian called her “something of a musical enigma.” Pitchfork praised her “spellbinding brand of anti-pop.” What you hear is a woman who stitched herself together with her teeth. She takes the stage, and it’s a spine reveal party that might disturb you a little—but damn if it doesn’t leave you mesmerised.❞