Moroccan post-punk artist Prophän wanders the empty streets of Casablanca in “Znaqi Khawya”, a morose dirge driven by a bassline and drum machine rhythm section that ambles forward like footsteps wandering in the dark, with flashes of sparse angular guitars that highlight the song’s overt bleakness.
Here, Prophän’s Othman Cherradi, taking great personal risk, navigates his native city at night. While most are shuttered away under curfew, Othman explores the desolate spaces, with music that captures with utmost sincerity themes of isolation, vulnerability, fighting spirit, and nostalgia.
“The song serves to represent the complicated relationship between myself and Casablanca, the big busy and crowded city where you can’t help but feel isolated most of the time, and how I cope with it in my own ways, also the current setting is invoked with the hard restrictions going on and the curfew run by the police state. the whole clip had to be filmed post-curfew that was the only way to get shots of those empty places”
Watch the video for “Znaqi Khawya”, directed by eYz (aka Jad Mouride) below:
Prophän is the solo electronic music project of Othman Cherradi, based in Casablanca, Morocco. Cherradi also runs the experimental techno label Rhadâb and is the co-founder, alongside Nova Ouacheb, of Mindless, a series of live events, podcasts, and radio broadcasts.
Using a microphone, drum machine, a few synths here and there, as well as an electric guitar borrowed from a friend, Cherradi creates music reflecting his daily life and the society around him, while utilizing a wide array of musical inspirations, ranging from industrial and post-punk, to local trance-inducing musical practices and customs that are part of surrounding culture in North Africa.
Prophän’s Nafssiya 4 track Mehtaja EP is out now via Istigkeit Records.
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Featured photo by Soukaina Zguendi
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