Over here at SoundPark, we believe that there are amazing and engaging stories from all corners of the globe. We pride ourselves on showcasing great ideas and the minds that bring them to life. To launch our second season of SP, we’re taking a visit to Cairo, Egypt to showcase one of the production agencies that do it right. The underground house/techno scene in Cairo is still relatively fresh but the brains behind Nacelle have been putting together successful events for over four years now. In a scene so young, we had to find out what makes Nacelle stand out from the rest. We sat down with the team to shed some light on the scene in Cairo, the challenges they face putting together events, and what makes them so unique. To soundtrack your weekend, Nacelle resident and a personal favorite of ours, Hisham Zahran crafts a gorgeous auditory story taking you into the smoothest parts of deep house. Welcome to SoundPark.
Many of our readers might not be very familiar with what you have going on over there, what exactly is Nacelle? Nacelle is a concept we started here in Cairo with the intention of being a virtual venue for music that we wanted to play for people. In Cairo, 500 people club nights were generally not very casual until recently. Our events feature many different styles of music night – funk/soul/disco, afro-beat, and of course house, the house music night being our largest and craziest. The weekly Friday night House Sessions take place currently in an incredible space on the Nile named the Temple. It currently is not a club; we set it up weekly as a pop-up club from scratch.
I really feel if you want to present new music or music that’s different than expected, you need to tweak every aspect of the night. So, each week, we play with those tweakable parameters in each venue in an attempt to ensure the music gets a fair shot…and if you don’t like the music we ensure you are comfortable and have a blast anyway. One of the more important parameters is sound. Most cases we reinforce any existing sound system to ensure the sound really hums. If you’re going to listen to music, better hear the entire spectrum of sounds, especially with house music - clear, rich, defined mid-bass and sub is extremely important.
Other things we tweak are the layout, dance floor, menu/specials, and door selection/staff. We really focus on the basics. Decoration has really not been our thing – only what we truly feel is fundamental to a great night…music, sound, lighting, visuals, and a friendly casual atmosphere.
Who are the main people involved? It started off with me and many different friends along the way. Then, after a year, I hooked up with my friend Hisham Nabil (not the DJ) and focused on doing this for real. He is very operationally minded and doesn’t like getting things wrong. House Sessions was born soon after I met Aly Bahgat, who started assisting me performing resident DJ duties. Lastly, an Egyptian/Swiss dude, Moez, joined us in the back end of the first House Sessions season – He’s a big believer and as great person to depend on. My wife has also been a part of our team, and it’s nice to be working together since this business doesn’t really allow you too much personal time. Funny thing is we’re both not party people…well not anymore at least. But since there’s so much serious work that is required behind the scenes to make this work right, it helps when one does not party …well once in a while never hurts at least!
I think it’s unfortunate that more people aren’t familiar with your resident DJ Hisham Zahran, who provided us with one of the better mixes we have in our catalog - how did you two link up? How does he make things special, both with Nacelle and on the dance floor? We both followed each other’s progress from afar, and made contact when he moved to Cairo from Alexandria in the spring of 2012. He played one of our nights and we immediately spoke internally about him joining us as a resident the following season. He’s a great DJ, always does his homework, and really knows how to read a crowd. Not only is there a mutual respect between the two of us, but he really sees the vision in what we do, and vice versa.
Hisham is one of four residents over the past two seasons. The others being Aly Bahgat, Baher, and Aly Goede. They’ve all been great and big believers in the brand. They are among the best in Cairo at what they do, and are very well loved.
There has been a great deal of political unrest in Egypt’s recent history, how has this caused your events to morph, especially through government imposed curfews and such. Well let’s start with the curfew! We have to deal with this when we started our season in last September. We took over the Fairmont Hotel, made some deals with them and threw back to back pool parties two weeks in a row. On Fridays, people had to be back in their houses at 7pm! So, to get around that, you’d check into the hotel and party all night instead. We even rolled out 400 square meters of lawn on the rooftop terrace of the hotel. The first night we have 220 rooms booked – really showing how much people like to party in Cairo.
Prior to that, honestly, all the unrest and everything actually fueled the party scene. It’s always hard because you never know if you need to cancel the event and maybe lose a bit of money. But, with regards to the situation seen from the outside, it’s never what the news reports as the news generally reports on just one thing.
Why do you feel expression, especially through art and music, is so important to people during such powerful events such as revolutions? Well, it’s very important but it’s also just a consequence. Music and art are cathartic, and during such times many people have their work life disrupted. Either without work, less work, or their business has to make tough decisions. This leaves you in limbo a bit, to either create or support other creations. In Egypt, I’ve seen so many doctors, engineers (myself being one of them), lawyers, or so on just go off and start a restaurant, become a DJ, musician, get into radio or television…or any creative outlet. It was happening as a consequence of Egypt’s socioeconomic issues, and we saw it grow with the revolution.
Cairo is a rather unknown scene, what do you feel sets you apart from others? Any other scenes you think are similar? With regard to our techno/house scene, it’s pretty innocent still. You will not find as many jaded people due over exposure to parties. The DJs that come here from abroad really notice it. They naturally come not knowing what to expect. Our parties feature a dance floor with up to 600 happy feet on it and everyone is just ready to dance and appreciate the DJ. They don’t really need to prove themselves; they just have to play from their heart. The other thing is people do really party here, while I won’t start a pissing contents or anything, but it’s true. Egyptians can be relentless when it comes to partying! The intensity of Cairo itself plays a big role into shaping the scene here.
Let’s talk about your brand a bit, how do you convey the Nacelle brand through your musical selections? We all have very diverse tastes. Lately I’ve been into a lot of funk, and all the house I’ve loved has been funky…which can still apply to a techno track. Aly Bahgat loves melody and the funk. Generally, a lot of our house DJ selections have a bit of an organic feeling, though we also do touch techno still. We feel we are a party that has something to offer for the DJ, so we try to pick DJs that we feel will appreciate and notice that.
In terms of artist selections, we try to be pretty broad. We’ve gone from SUOL (Daniel Bortz, Chopstick & Jonjon, and others) to Noir, Hot Since 82, Maxxi, Crazy P, Matthias Meyer, Smash TV…. On the local front we have a ton of insane talent. Aside from our aforementioned residents, we’ve features Klady, Aroussi, Minus T, Hassan Abou Alam, In2Deep, and Fulltone – we have so much respect for all of them!
Anyways, there is this element of funk that is associated with our brand because of one of our nights, The B-Side. That’s kind of become my home, as I’m a bit older now and don’t play the house nights as often and prefer to carry a groovier tempo these days. All in all we go with what we like, and by just following the sounds we’re into. Doing that has allowed us to bring to Cairo the DJs we’ve all listened to so much over the years.
You have recently been known for your weekly party, House Sessions, which has the seemingly proper, “Go Wild” tagline. What makes this party special? What makes it a Nacelle party? I think it’s special because of the crowd diversity. You’ll find some very dressed up people and you’ll find people in sneakers. We’re not here to judge and we ask (silently) that nobody else does. We do that by our constant attention to provide a musical experience. Cairo has a very big table [bottle service] culture. We keep out tables elevated slightly on the sides, and have a massive dance floor in the middle…which is uncommon here. We also have an incredible entourage of people who keep the DJ are warm and filled with good vibes. We keep the door cool, while it has rules and all, it’s nothing crazy.
Our entry flow is peaceful, our visuals and lighting is not too flashy. We try to avoid labeling the party as underground or anything like that. We are what we are and we hope you like it. Of course, no party would be complete without the loyalty of our fans. We really do have some hardcore fans, both old and new. It’s truly amazing and makes us very thankful.
Nacelle aims to provide an outlet for entertainment and genuine fun by bringing talented DJs to play the good stuff. It’s not only about bringing good people together, but also bringing like-minded people together, and that includes the DJs.
You’ve been at this for over 4 years now, what do you have planned to keep things fresh? To keep the most important part of why we all do this, the people, happy? Well, I think if we shut down that would be fresh…hahaha just joking! We joke about that, it’s stressful at times! We actually have a couple of big parties in mind – like festival big. This would be new territory for us as we’ve never done that before. We have an entirely new concept around a festival that will result in a bunch of things that will be completely new to people here…and more importantly new to us. I think as long as you’re feeling challenged you will keep growing and doing it better and better. People feel that and it feels fresh. We are definitely not a group that tries to be original; it’s not about being original or being the first. It’s about being genuine and loving to do it.
Photo Credits: Zeyad Gohary
Listen to Hisham Zahran on Pulse Radio