Escalay: The Water Wheel

Hamza El Din's 'Escalay: The Water Wheel' is a seminal work that introduced the subtleties of traditional Nubian music to a global audience through its release on the Nonesuch Explorer Series. The album is built around El Din's virtuosic and meditative oud performance, vocals, and the rhythmic pulse of the tar, creating a sparse yet deeply evocative soundscape. The extended title track sonically captures the cyclical motion of a water wheel, a central element of life on the Nile, serving as a powerful lament for his native village which was flooded after the construction of the Aswan High Dam.