about
Cerpintxt is the solo multidisciplinary project of Egyptian artist Alaa Yousry. An electroacoustic progress report concerned with generating an invented language of a particular strain of softness through phonetic entropy and augmented instrumentation. Working with cut-ups and dialectical chaos magick to dissipate the parasitic structures of language and linear constructs of temporality. Blending ritual with precision in an exhaustive process of lingual erosion into protoconversation, to reveal the tenuous links between sound and the fluid interconnectivity of meaning. Her sound's textural counterparts include wind instruments, broken turntablism, tape recorders, granular and modular synthesis.
Some of her projects underway include a noir-jazz album of interpretations of Egyptian ballads, a semi-improvisational synesthesia-inducing musical game system on the fragmentation and decontextualizion of memories, site-specific works in the mountains of the Sinai Peninsula and Serabit El Khadim, ethnic heritage projects documenting music of the East Sinai Bedouin tribes, and neuroscience research on an interactive-music consciousness intervention for comatose patients.
Her work has been reviewed by The Wire, The Quietus, Mixmag, and DJ Mag. She is a resident artist on Radio Alhara and Radio Syg.ma. She curates the London-based event 'Boundary Condition’ investigating the parallelisation between noir-jazz, hauntology, and music concrete as nostalgia-centric sonic practices.
Cerpintxt gratefully acknowledges support from PRS Foundation’s The Open Fund.
