For a decade, the songs of peripatetic guitarist and singer Ilyas Ahmed
have been mistaken for atmospheres. Recorded in a cloud of echo and
shrouded by the distortion endemic to lo-fi equipment, Ahmed’s pieces
used to feel distant, transmitted from some faraway plane and warped en
route. Though “Black Midas”, from his excellent 2005 debut, was a
gorgeous duet for piano and guitar, the recording added enough ghostly
essence for the result to imply witchcraft. At its core, “Stained Sky”,
from his 2012 debut for Immune Recordings, was a chugging power ballad,
but with the chords overloading the microphone and Ahmed’s voice
interred by static, it became otherworldly, less a hit than a haze.
Ilyas Ahmed – I Am All Your Own (2015)
For a decade, the songs of peripatetic guitarist and singer Ilyas Ahmed
have been mistaken for atmospheres. Recorded in a cloud of echo and
shrouded by the distortion endemic to lo-fi equipment, Ahmed’s pieces
used to feel distant, transmitted from some faraway plane and warped en
route. Though “Black Midas”, from his excellent 2005 debut, was a
gorgeous duet for piano and guitar, the recording added enough ghostly
essence for the result to imply witchcraft. At its core, “Stained Sky”,
from his 2012 debut for Immune Recordings, was a chugging power ballad,
but with the chords overloading the microphone and Ahmed’s voice
interred by static, it became otherworldly, less a hit than a haze.
