Nabeel (نبيل): The border-defying sound of Iraqi shoegaze
Shoegaze was never meant for mainstream consumption; its wall of overwhelming distortion and adoption of more guitar pedals than musicians was hardly going to become the de facto sound of the pop charts, but its endearingly abrasive sound seemed to find its way into the hearts of those who needed it most, wherever they resided.
Throughout the history of popular music, some of the most interesting and innovative masterpieces have come from the combination of a nation’s traditional folk sound with whatever the pop charts of the time contained. It was through these genre-spanning means that the world witnessed the incredible sounds of Anatolian psychedelia, African desert blues, and even the Middle Eastern pop mastery of Googoosh. As it turns out, shoegaze is no exception to that rule, either.
Within the realm of shoegaze, all roads seem to lead back to My Bloody Valentine and their origins in early 1980s Dublin, but their slacker distortion has certainly had a global impact, appealing to all sorts of musical misfits the world over. The American-Iraqi musician Yasir Razak is one such misfit, and since 2021, he has been at the forefront of Nabeel, the group combining the sounds of Iraq with a deep-rooted adoration for shoegaze and 1990s slacker rock.
Iraqi music, in a traditional sense, has always been rooted in age-old instrumentation and the folk sounds of the various different ethnic groups which make up the Iraqi population. In a similar fashion to their neighbours in Iran, the nation did witness a pop explosion back in the 1960s, as artists looked to integrate the sounds emerging from the West with their own ethnic backgrounds.
Before too long, though, the political turmoil and tumultuous nature of peace under the rule of Saddam Hussein – and the devastating conflicts which ravaged the nation throughout the 1990s and 2000s- meant that the distinctive sounds of Iraqi pop and rock music were largely lost, driven underground, or forced to relocate.
Nevertheless, the Iraqi diaspora – Razak included – have since made an effort to preserve the musical traditions of their roots, while also updating them for modern audiences.
Nabeel first emerged back in 2021, and this past year saw the release of their eight-track EP, the masterful ghayoom – غيوم, which perfectly captures the unique sound and appeal of the band’s ever-expanding influences. Sonically, the record would fit right at home within the world of 1990s slacker indie, categorised in the same record store crate as the likes of MBV or Slowdive, and it even hints at outfits like Pavement at various points.
At its core, though, ghayoom, along with the entirety of Nabeel’s discography thus far, places an eye-opening focus on Razak’s Iraqi roots. Choosing to perform each track in the Arabic language used by his mother, the songwriter extends the confines of the record far beyond his home base of Richmond, Virginia, creating a genre-spanning, border-defying masterpiece which stands strong among the greatest guitar-based efforts of the past year.
Great music is universal, and it is artists like Nabeel who demonstrate that fact better than most; not only creating something that speaks to the unique lives and cultural influences of those belonging to a particular diaspora, but also landing upon some of the most infectious shoegaze excellence in recent memory.
