Dandin’s Top Ten Albums of 2015

Following on from the artists of the year list, it’s time for the top ten albums of the year, as decided by our users.  One important caveat before proceeding though; the albums need not have been released in 2015. This is a list of  – through a combination of actions on the Dandin website  – the most popular…

Dandin’s Top Ten Artists in 2015

It’s been a fruitful year for independent and quasi-independent music in the Middle East. It has seen a spurt in budding genres making headway across the region, such as Hip Hop and Electronic music. But when it comes to what listeners on Dandin are checking out, Tarab, Pop and Arabic Rock still rule the roost. Here are the ten…

الإسكندرية، وجه آخر من الموسيقى البديلة

يوجد لدى الإسكندريّة ما يمكن أن أصفه بسلاح ذو حدّين، و هو نوع من الإنقطاع الزمني عن العاصمة، ففي حين أجد -و في رأيي الشخصي- أن الإسكندرية تعاني من شكل من التأخر في الحقبة الزمنيّة، مما يعطي لها ملمساً في المزج بين عناصر تتواجد في زمنين مختلفين، و ليس كأن الفنّان يعيد إحياء تراث مثلاً،…

Playlist Frenzy

We’ve been going a little crazy running through the new site and a byproduct of this has been a set of new and updated playlists by genre (though of course we use the term quite loosely). So whatever your poison may be, may you find it on this list. Tarab Playlist: Sonorous voices, searing violins. Hip…

Playlist within a playlist

Last week Dandin was invited by the good folk at Mada Masr to regale attendees of Vent with four hours of music spanning the globe and decades of output. Nestled within this long list were some representatives of the Middle East’s contemporary music scene, and it seemed fitting that a Dandin playlist be created specifically for them. Admittedly the…

Artivism Festival

This coming Saturday sees a music festival Dandin is very much looking forward to, boasting a lineup that includes some of the best live acts you would ever hope to see in Egypt. The Artivism Festival is the brainchild of a collective that aims to “use different art forms as tools to create social and cultural change.”…

The Invisible Hands

We often speak of hidden gems in Cairo, places, nooks and crannies that are tucked away within the immensity of the city. It isn’t often you have a walking, talking hidden gem, but Cairo does sport such a thing in Alan Bishop, of Sun City Girls fame. The Sun City Girls were an American experimental rock band…

كارثة نيفين – Karset Nevin

ركز. لازم تكون موجود طول الوقت. موجود وحاضر. متحطش فلاتر على الحياة. الحياة خرة. وأنا أهه، واقفلها. متكلمنيش في السياسة. ماتقوليش رأيك في المجتمع والدين. وأهم حاجة: وحياتك، وحياتك، ماتضربليش سيجارتين حشيش بالليل وتكلمني عن الوحدة والشوق والحب – وتسمي ده شعر. كلمني عن إللي جواك. مبسوط؟ مستحيل. بتحب؟ مافيش حب من غير كره، من غير…

A Year In Dandin

It’s been a year since the launch of Dandin as an audio platform for the Middle East. And it has been a joy to discover such varied talent along the way from a still nascent, but burgeoning, movement. Whether in music, poetry or other audio formats, the snapshot of this past year has been heady and wildly eclectic.…

Discover

The Discover page on Dandin. This is where you can find all the artists on the website and can further split into categories (music/stories) and genres (rock, electronic, alternative etc). You can also view it by artist or track and on the top left you can see the most listened and most liked. It’s a…

Welcome to the Dandin blog

Welcome to the Dandin blog, the English accompaniment to the Arabic language audio platform Dandin. The aim of this blog is to highlight some of the stellar talent of the Middle East hosted on the website to a wider audience. Covering a variety of musical genres in addition to non-musical audio, there’s a lot of…