About

​Wewantsounds is delighted to release Ayam El Disco, a new selection of Egyptian 1980s disco and boogie cassette tracks curated by Egyptian DJ Disco Arabesquo, following his highly acclaimed Sharayet El Disco. Most tracks make their vinyl debut in this set. A journey through the funky sounds of 1980s Egypt, Ayam El Disco (“Disco Days”) features Ammar El Sherei, Al Massrieen, and other underground artists from Cairo’s vibrant cassette culture. The audio has been remastered for vinyl by David Hachour at Colorsound Studio in Paris, and the LP features artwork by Egyptian graphic designer Heba Tarek, along with a 2-page insert showcasing the original cassette artwork and insightful liner notes by Moataz Rageb. — (via Label)

—

Egyptian disco music is one of those genres that you’re prob­ably barely aware of, but once you’ve star­ted explor­ing it via vari­ous online rab­bit holes, you’ll find your­self want­ing to listen to little else. It flour­ished in the late 1970s and ’80s, in the hotel bars, cab­aret lounges and cafes of Cairo, and would be primar­ily dis­trib­uted by cas­sette, a medium that had all but eclipsed vinyl in much of the Middle East in the 1970s.

The Egypt-born, Ams­ter­dam-based soci­olo­gist and DJ Moataz Rageb, aka Disco Arabesquo, has become the fore­most cur­ator of this music, and fol­lows his ninet­rack 2022 com­pil­a­tion Sharayet El Disco with the 11-track Ayam El Disco: Egyp­tian Disco, Boo­gie And Jeel Cas­settes 1978–92. Both assemble high­lights from the thou­sands of cas­settes in his col­lec­tion, which have been digit­ised, remastered and metic­u­lously cred­ited. Tracks usu­ally fea­ture a famil­iar disco under­car­riage – machine-like four-to-the-floor drums, bass gui­tars play­ing octave bass­lines, wah-wah gui­tar, big riffs played by string sec­tions or synths – over­laid with local tropes: dar­buka drums, ney flutes, melis­matic vocals and dis­tinctly Arabic-sound­ing maqam scales. — (via Press Reader)

—

— Colour insert featuring original cassette artwork and liner notes
— Featuring never before released tracks on vinyl

Vinyl Tracklist
A1 Firkit Americana Show — Seeb Alby
A2 Al Massrieen — Afifa El Hawa
A3 Firkit Hany Shenoda — Lounga 85
A4 Mostafa El Sakka — Rezq El Ein
A5 Hamid El Shaeri — Ouda
B1 Firkit El Pharana — Ya Habiby
B2 Omar Fathy — Beteghdaby
B3 Ammar El Sherei — Sooq
B4 Madath Saleh — El Milionerat
B5 Aida El Ayoubi — Asfour
B6 Ahmed Adaweya — Little Up

↓
Label: Wewantsounds
Format: Vinyl, LP, Compilation
Released: 2026
Genre: Funk / Soul, Folk, World, & Country
Style: Disco, Boogie

File under: Global Sounds
⦿