Abdullah Miniawy - Peacock dreams (2025)

Unquestionably one of the year's most creative and incisive records, Abdullah Miniawy's epic, operatic follow-up to 'Nigma Enigma أنيجم النَجم' is bigger, bolder and more focused than its predecessor, girding Miniawy's stirrlingly poetic chants with sublime Nymanesque brass harmonies. Nowt else quite like this, but if you're into MSYLMA, Gavin Bryars, Scott Walker, Arve Henriksen or David Sylvian, then don't dare sleep.

I'm constantly searching for a new sound Paris-based Egyptian artist Miniawy said last year in an interview with SHAPE. At that point, he'd mostly been spotted working alongside other artists, with German trio Carl Gari, French beatmaker Simo Cell, acclaimed jazz outfit Le Cri du Caire, Danish-Indian alchemist HVAD or Berlin-based avant outsider Ziúr, but after years of relentless collaboration, he was ready to make a more personal statement. The Hundebiss-released 'Nigma Enigma أنيجم النَجم' played like an artistic renewal; Miniawy's obsessively developed lyrical form and startling delivery was intact, but his heady accompaniment, produced with modular synth and shortwave radio, was unexpected, leaving plenty of room for his expressions to breathe, free from the weight of additional egos. "The work envisions an opera for Muslims," he explained in the accompanying press release, mapping out a concept that balanced the Middle East's various intertwined religions and traditions with classical notions of heaven and hell. And less than a year later, those ideas have been refined and expanded into one of the best suites of contemporary avant-garde music we've heard in a while.

On 'Peacock dreams أَحْلَامُ الطَّاوُوسِ' Miniawy's stew of themes is distilled to a potent tincure, the modular hiccups and powdery radio snippets are gone, replaced by charged, eloquent brass phrases performed by Paris-based trombonists Robinson Khoury and Jules Boittin. And it's important to note that although Miniawy has pulled on collaborators again, the expression is still very much his own - the cautious, minimal harmonies were written by Miniawy before being properly arranged by Khoury. Even the album cover is Miniawy's own work, an abstract self portrait from 2022 that pictures the artist with one eye open, decorated in vivid colors. "A peacock dreams of being a poet," reads the accompanying poem in English and Arabic. "It ponders, trying to shed its colors, turning its feathers into a gradient of flesh." Miniawy isn't attempting to peel away his skin, he's showing us a multi-dimensional, translucent model in various mediums, with its channels and facets picked out by the nuances and complex emotions in his voice. It's the most all-encompassing record Miniawy has produced so far, confidently nodding to his canon both with its collaborations (with HVAD and Swiss jazz veteran Erik Truffaz) and its smart reinterpretations of older works.

The album is best (maybe exclusively?) enjoyed in a single sitting, where the depth of Miniawy's vision can be perceived properly. If you've heard his material before, you'll know broadly what to expect from his vocals; delivered mostly in classical Arabic and chanted in the style of Qur'anic recitals and Sufi prayers, his poems hinge on his deep understanding of the language, that he uses to emphasise his revolutionary philosophical notions. And he's been refining the technique since he was eight years old when, inspired by events he saw unfolding on the news, he presented his Arabic professor dad with verse so advanced that it was hard to believe it came from a child. Since then, his words have been scrawled on walls around Egypt during the Arab Spring and published in books and journals, but there's nothing quite like hearing them delivered alongside Khoury and Boittin's elegiac brass drones, whether you understand Arabic or not. His performance is bold and uniquely charismatic but never completely infallible; like a preacher tormented by his reflection, his words soar to the heavens before crashing down to earth in tearful laments. Just listen to the contrast between 'Poem of the poems قصيدة القصائد', where his words weave between fluttering Nicholas Britell-style phrases, and 'Kemet song 𓆎𓅓𓏏𓊖', a reflection on Miniawy's ancient ancestral home that flits between fearlessness and unrestrained sorrow.

On the title track, Miniawy's brass ensemble (bumped up by Truffaz) capture the chaos of contemporary Egypt, forming sputtering rhythms and staccato car horn-like wails that dissolve into dissociated echoes while Miniawy sways from mode to mode, and on 'Ta-Mehu song 𓇾𓊪𓆓𓏏𓊖 (remix)', Miniawy harks back to 2022's brilliant 'Notice A Tiny Scratch For The Blue Behind', calling to the distant past over HVAD's lopsided tabla-style whirrs, resonant drones and turntablist noise bursts. But it's the album's simplest, most minimal compositions that deliver the most crushing blows. 'Kneel for truth اركع للحقيقة' and 'Million years, Papa مليون سنة، بابا' feed into each other, punctuating Miniawy's most heartfelt harmonies with eerie pauses and musical rhymes. His voice has always been acrobatic, and here it's as if he's surveying different ground, creating an operatic cadence that soars from religious symbolism on the former to a vigil that's closer to home on the latter. Seriously, if you listen to these two and don't feel a thing, we don't know what to tell you. A monumental work, in every way.

Tracklist:
1-1 Abdullah Miniawy - Danza del ventre رقصة البطن [3:50]
1-2 Abdullah Miniawy - Signature توقيع [0:55]
1-3 Abdullah Miniawy - Poem of the poems قصيدة القصائد [2:58]
1-4 Abdullah Miniawy - Kemet song [3:05]
1-5 Abdullah Miniawy - Ta-Mehu song (feat. HVAD) [Remix] [6:28]
1-6 Abdullah Miniawy - Fearless paradise رياض لا خوف بها [2:20]
1-7 Abdullah Miniawy - Kneel for truth اركع للحقيقة (feat. Erik Truffaz) [4:16]
1-8 Abdullah Miniawy - Million years, Papa مليون سنة، بابا [3:33]
1-9 Abdullah Miniawy - She guy in Chicago ابنة شيكاجو [3:37]
1-10 Abdullah Miniawy - Peacock dreams (Rêves de paon) أحلام الطاووس (feat. Erik Truffaz) [5:45]
1-11 Abdullah Miniawy - In this world ما يدعى حب (live at CTM Festival) [1:37]
1-12 Abdullah Miniawy - Moon of ghazals قمر الغزلان (feat. Niño de Elche & Erik Truffaz) [2:37]