Toumba spools through a two-hour meditation on love, lament and desire.
2023 has been an important year for Toumba, the Jordanian, Ammani producer and DJ born Yazan Zyadat. While last year illuminated Zyadat as one of the most exciting rising talents in dance music as he made consistent efforts to share the spotlight with both local and diasporic SWANA artists, this year saw him digging deeper into the historical and contemporary musical traditions of Jordan. On Petals, Zyadat explored Levantine microtonality, deconstructed dabkeh, drew from Jordanian wedding music and Arabic musical modes. For Janoob (جنوب), which translates as ‘the south’ in Arabic, he was influenced by the music of the Bedouins, releasing on Nervous Horizon and in so doing coming full circle from the moment Zyadat first decided to start making music, when he heard TSVI’s ‘Hossam’ played by SHERELLE at an afters.
Most recently, on For Palestine, he dug into his vaults to find unreleased material to raise funds for Medical Aid for Palestine and to buy E-Sims for people in Gaza. Off the dancefloor his work curating the program for MNFA مَنفى and his support of Amman’s essential experimental outpost Drowned By Locals underlines Zyadat’s tireless generosity and dedication to the Jordan scene while outlining him as the kind of essential force for good sorely needed in electronic music scenes the world over. As 2023 draws to an end, the artist takes stock with his Fact mix, a nearly two-hour session that simultaneously serves as a summary of some of the year’s very best music and an uncompromising transmission from the heart.
“Welcome into my life from its twenties to its nineties,” Zyadat quotes. “This is an extremely special and personal mix dedicated to love, purity, devotion, hope and yearning. By no means is it a club or a dance mix, despite it having its moments. It’s the musical embodiment of crippling emotional turbulence rooted in love, lament and desire. Hopefully throughout the almost two-hour length of the mix it invokes in you what it did in me.”
You can find Toumba on Instagram, SoundCloud and Bandcamp.
Tracklist:
r beny – ‘Saudade’
Hiroshi Elbina – ‘This too Shall Pass’
sea oleena – ‘Will I Know’
Ulla – ‘Stunned Suddenly’
Hotel Neon – ‘A Lament’
??? – ‘???’
ssabæ – ‘une goutte qui se forme’
Ulla – ‘I think My Tears Have Become Good’
??? – ‘???’
Ian William Craig – ‘Blue Suit Glitch’
fiebertraum – ‘dancing in the crypt of sorrow’
Burial – ‘New Love’
Deuteronomy – ‘Hopeful Romantic’
Neuheimaraltz – ‘奈落に響く音’
TRYCE – ‘Closer’
Oravin – ‘Anhedonia (The Sun)’
Ф Cygnid – ‘Unheard Depths’
Nmesh – ‘心痛を受け入れます’
Mabisyo – ‘私の魂は海の嵐’
Euphoria Journal – ‘Reaching for You’
響く夢 – ‘憂さ晴らし’
bod [包家巷] – ‘regrettably beautiful’
Misophaes – ‘Night Bleed’
Rainy Miller x Space Afrika – ‘The Graves at Charleroi [Feat. Coby Sey]
Ian William Craig – ‘A Crack and a Shadow’
TRYCE – ‘Meteora’
SKYLA – ‘Satiation’
TRYCE – ‘Phosphene’
Jeph Vagner – ‘Give Up’
Qow – ‘Elly 2atelny’
SKYLA – ’25th Hour’
Fearful & Mtwn – ‘Void’
??? – ‘???’
Keita Sano – ‘Slick’
Kosei Fukuda – ‘光源 Kougen (MA + Kosei Fukuda Version)’
Hulubalang – ‘Sayat’
Black Merlin – ‘Phase One’
MSYLMA & Ismael – ‘The Lover’s Creed’
Chrisman – ‘Mediocre’
蛇塚透花 – ‘紺碧の桎梏’
Slikback – ‘BREATHE’
??? – ‘Rover’
Quelle Chris – ‘Andale Andales’
Less-O – ‘Behind Closed Doors’
V/Z – ‘Habadash’ [Feat. Cathy Lucas]
Mrkiick – ‘Maximum’
Verraco – ‘I thought you should know’
TSVI – ‘Disoriento’
These Hidden Hands – ‘Kheium (SHXCXCHCXSH Remix)’
Lil Wayne – ‘I’ll Die For You’
Atom – ‘Tanz’
Christian Coiffure – ‘Meet Her Stage 2’
Rainy Miller & Space Afrika – ‘HDIF’
Oblique Occasions – ‘FETTERED’
Toma Kami – ‘Quad’
Eartheater – ‘Crushing’
Arlo Parks – ‘Devotion’
Listen next: Fact Mix – Chuquimamani-Condori
