Cairo-based producer, DJ and multidisciplinary artist El Kontessa experiments at the confluence of bass music and polyrhythmic sensibilities, distilling Cairo's sounds into a mash-up of textures and a melding of evocative and maximalist language. El Kontessa's adeptness in interweaving her own production and DJing acumen constructs condensed, evanescent live sets that traverse ever-evolving sonic topographies.

In her debut record, Nos Habet Caramel (2023, Bilna'es), she brings together seven sample-heavy, beat-driven tracks with accelerating polyrhythms, echoing Mahraganat percussion, vocal hits, bursts of synths and fragments from Cairo's sonic landscape. Bringing together her production and experience as a DJ, El Kontessa navigates many worlds seamlessly, creating a condensed and shorter DJ-like structure with every track. Like the artwork, illustrated by El Kontessa herself, the album takes on slippery shapeshifting forms that seem to dissipate just as they solidify. The sounds of "Nos Habet Caramel" are over-saturated, entangled yet fluid, carrying in them a sense of longing that is constantly disrupted and changing.

Since her emergence in 2018, El Kontessa has graced live stages across the Arab world and Europe, appearing in essential lineups at venues and festivals including the Fri-Son Club Fribourg, Stuttgart Festival, Nykobop Festival in Paris, and Utrecht’s Le Guess Who?. Her sonic explorations can also be found and heard on global platforms such as Nyege Nyege Festival, and Vice Magazine, and across airwaves on stations like NTS, Rinse FM, Movement Radio Noods and most recently as a resident on Stegi Radio. 

“What distinguishes Soliman from contemporaries is her maximalist style. Like her wildly colorful visual artwork, some of which adorns the album’s cover, she packs as many ideas into each track as she can, never quite sticking to one groove, texture, tempo, or melody. Yet it’s not at the expense of danceability, informed as much by electronic experimentation as by tried-and-true rhythms from Jersey club to maqsoum.” Bandcamp Album of the Day 

“As a purely musical endeavour, an exercise in style, an open-ended exploration of autochthonous musical practices through a modern lens, the album represents the opposite of so many trendy concept-driven releases that came out in recent years. It’s the work of a zealous producer moulding the currently popular darbuka-infused polyrhythms and energetic mahraganat samples into a personal vision. Nos Habet Caramel isn’t a polished pearl, but more of a sonic conglomerate, rough around the edges and unruly in structure, yet possessing a distinct appeal.” The Quietus