"It's all been done before.."

Derawan (of lupa lari) and Nouria (Nouria Bah) meet for the first time ever (!) for a deep dive into Nouria’s newest EP: DON B4, interspersed with artworks and images which inspired the record.

                                                                 DON B4 cover artwork by David Sappa

Derawan: You said you’ve been thinking about putting out a project for a while. I feel like you’ve been doing music for a really long time though, right? But this is the first EP?

Nouria: Yeah, so, before, I would just upload onto Soundcloud, just making really lo-fi stuff, which I still do a little bit and want to release later in that way. But since moving here in 2011, I also would perform live, doing a mixture of my own and other people's songs with different bands - sometimes it'd be ten people, sometimes it'd be three people. And I’d do these live covers of the songs I have on Soundcloud, and I played in all these different places around London. But I never recorded it properly or captured it in that way.

And anytime I would finish, if people asked, where can we find you? I'd be like, “you can go to Soundcloud and listen to my lo-fi stuff.. and that's about it!”

I've always been really shy about self promotion, about releasing in, let's say, the more traditional way of  rolling something out. But I've always kind of wanted to do it. So I've always had this long-winded self-battle, you know? 

But I can give Future Bubblers credit for forcing me to slap-dash create a band again and perform, because I was really shying away from that. Then the first time I met Ky (peach records founder and DON B4 producer/bassist) I was talking about how I'd just come back from the States and was trying to work on more music. I’d reconnected with old friends that I had previously collaborated with to form a new band, and we played a showcase as part of the program.

And then when Ky said they’d be excited to work with me, they were really encouraging and up for helping me record, and thinking about how we would capture this with a live band. As we were getting more gigs from the showcase, it slowly turned into this EP!

                                                                         The Black Hole by Kilian Eng

D: It sounds to me like you did a lot of your process through live performance first?

N: I think that a lot of it was to do with feeling really, really comfortable with the people I’m working with. It’s a big group of people but they were all completely up for figuring out these songs and playing them live. And it is a funny amalgamation of people: Ky who I met almost randomly, Anna [De Mutiis] who I’ve know for a really long time, And David [Sappa], who I met on Soundcloud, of all places, which is amazing. We had talked about collaborating and shared stuff over the years, but last year was the first time I actually met him in person!

On songwriting

N: It's always a little bit terrifying. When I first started songwriting, I was thinking I wanted to be a little bit more shielded in regards to what I’m talking about. With lyrics, I always try to challenge myself to go more towards the abstract.

So, with Trask, for example, it was written during a moment where I was reading John Steinbeck. I was just trying to describe this one bit of the book, which I barely remember now, but had something to do with the desert and heartbreak..? I was using the book as, like, an anchor for that feeling.

I also always want to be bringing in loads of different sonic elements and approaching it like a hip hop mixtape, in that way: like an interlude.

I start songs not with lyrics, but with, a bass melody. I always do lyrics last, like, just throwing paint at something. When it comes to singing, I try to imagine my voice as like a brass instrument, jamming over that bass, and thinking: how can I phrase something in a way that's surprising?

I like the idea of the songs as a lot of different bits and pieces, maybe reclaiming that aspect of that shyness I have, that insecurity that one might have about making songs but exploring it in a really fun way.

                                                                         Monorail by Alisdair Willis

Because all of these songs are super old, I thought that's why the EP should also be called ‘done before’ as well, because they've all been done before so many different times, but with basically little to no evidence of it. So I think it just kind of all slotted together, in my head.

D: I feel like the EP is a very specific almagamation, to use your word, of both your lo-fi Soundcloud stuff and the experience of playing live together?

N: A lot of the songs I’ve made are really vocally driven, at certain points just vocals on vocals, stacking harmonies. That’s when I'm doing it at home, ‘lo fi production’ like, just throwing things in and then taking them out, adding a lot of reverb (because it sounds nice) and, you know, if a cup falls, that's extra rhythm, you know?

With this project, I do think I have vocals and bass in mind most of the time, but with other melody lines I want people to play, I'll let them, if they want to, play whatever and let other parts shine. So, say, Loretta playing sax or bringing up David's guitar..

Although no one, when we play live, no one wants to solo. It's the most shy, humble group of people. I mean, including me - I'm not gonna start shouting or whatever, but I'm like, someone, please!

And then some people are like, I don't believe in having a solo. What do you mean?! It's not religion, it's just an opportunity for a different texture..

D: Your inner band leader came out, like, listen, kids, someone's doing the solo.

N: Someone's gotta do it. Please shine!

On Don B4, the song which became the EP’s title

Basically DON B4 was the first song that we started recording. And because I was like, oh, I need to have something as an output, something to show. Why don't we just record DON B4 and release that, and then I can freak out about funding and try to do more afterwards..?

That title is a weird amalgamation of references. I was watching DON by Amitabh Bachchan because my mom, when I was growing up, was really into Bollywood films. I had that film on in the background and I was just thinking about if I could make a weird soundtrack to that movie? So that's why I spell it like D-O-N.

                                                                              Film poster for Don (1976)

It was also during a time that I felt so bad about myself and confused about what to do. I went to this party, and I met someone who lives in Berlin, and said I was doing music, or trying to. And then she was just like…disgusted. She was like, oh, everyone in Berlin is a musician. I think she basically did say, almost, that it's all been done before.

And I felt kind of ouch….but cool concept.

                                    A still from Friday (1995) directed by F. Gary Gray

On releasing music

There’s this possibility to get so wrapped up in streaming numbers, checking if people are listening on the Spotify for Artists app - I had to delete it. It took me a while to understand that getting wrapped up in that made it so much less about the music and so much more about pushing the thing..

But I’ve been talking to other musicians who told me to focus on the fact that you’ve released music and however it’s appreciated, it is appreciated, and I have, in organic ways, had lots of people appreciate the EP.

But, in the beginning, it was so easy to fall into the algorithm trap and really focus on that: if [a song] doesn’t have X amount of plays, then it’s not worthy. You’re not even listening to the music: you’re just working, you’re marketing.

The music industry is so annoying: it is annoying, and everyone knows it's annoying…

Despite all my grumblings, which is what I've done a lot at the time, I do think that music - that feeling that you get, that you can just appreciate making and listening to music. I don't want to lose that, I still do want to do it. It's just figuring out the how..

Advice for other artists

In addition to finding people that have been encouraging, finding more cohesiveness in that way, for me, I think I..just decided to try, if that makes sense?

Like finally, rather than overthinking and wallowing, just enjoy what you’re doing and it’ll be fine, you don’t have to be so analytical about it: just accepting that it it will take a while, but that's OK.

Some favourite albums

So Gene McDaniels’ Headless Heroes of the Apocalypse has been sampled by a lot of hip hop artists. The first song that I heard from it is called The Parasite, and it's literally just about how the pilgrims came over to America and fucked everything up. So groovy and so catchy. Even with what he’s singing about, still soo funky. Rumour has it, he got put on an FBI watchlist because of it..

The Stark Reality Discovers Hoagie Carmichael's Music Shop.

So, kids’ songs, but it's just like prog rock and jazz, it's really wild. And the main guy, monty Stark, he plays vibraphone, but the way that he plays it, he way that it resonates, it sounds almost like a guitar or even a bass.

That's a real love or hate one. I think it's so amazing and basically perfect amount of Sesame Street nostalgia kind of sound, but with jazz.

Tumi and the Volume - Live at The Bassline

So this is a live album, and it’s such a unique mashup of rap, violin, bass. Some of it is spoken word and a lot of it is really sad, but really beautiful.

My mom brought it back from a trip to South Africa - she just bought a lot of random music - and I was really intrigued by the cover because it's like this green and black kind of low light, of a jazz club. I started listening to it when I was maybe ten or eleven and I was so enthralled with the music that it took me a while for things to actually sink in, to really understand the lyrics. Because it's so obvious, but.. not obvious? And I think that's informed the way I want to make music, the way the recording really captures the moment of them performing it.

Quickfire round!

D: If the EP was a place, where would it be?

N: A really cosy 1 AM, 2:00 AM midnight type of space? With blue TV screen light: you might fall asleep but you don't, and you're just, like, listening to something that makes you happy, that might seep into your day the next day. For some reason, I always think about night time for this EP.

                                                           A still from Destination Earth (1956)

D: A texture?

N: I think I'm still going with that whole TV thing, kind of staticky and blurry..

D: A fragrance?

N: Like a fireplace at nighttime: smokey, kind of wood-y..? Bark-y..?

                                        Pool, Red Rim, 2017 (detail) by Katherine Bradford

D: A mood?

N: Maybe, nostalgic and playful and sad...

Like, it's late at night and you fall asleep watching 90s TV..

Then you kind of wake up, you're just a little bit awake and maybe there’s a cartoon or something like that playing in the background there...

* * *

DON B4 by Nouria Bah was released on October 11th 2024 by peach records.

Buy DON B4 as cassette and/or digital download from Bandcamp.

Full EP credits:

ANNA DE MUTIIS: DRUMS, PERCUSSION
DEBORAH BORG BRINCAT: KEYS, VOCALS
DAVID SAPPA: GUITAR
LORETTA TOSSON: SAXOPHONE
CO-ARRANGER: HARRY OAKES
BASS, VOCALS, PERCUSSION: KY ACAB
RECORDED, MIXED AND MASTERED AT PEACH STUDIOS BY KYLE ACAB
ARTWORK: DAVID SAPPA