“By melting about 500 cuts from TV and radio archives, found footage, commercials, forgotten songs, movies, pop trends, internet culture, and other sources of sound that whisper or shout in listeners ears, Melting engages with the romanticized consumerist vision of the past as portrayed by big corporations, capitalist entities, and authoritarian regimes.

Melting is an antidote to the false promises of capitalism and an invitation to engage with the past in a non-romanticized way. It is not about celebrating the past by completely submitting to nostalgia, reviving it through (sonic) citation and mourning for the glorious old days. Rather, it is about artistically exploring the effect of late capitalisms nostalgia and thereby criticizing it. On a conceptual level, it is a call to reclaim agency over the past; an attempt to connect with people through shared experiences and collective memory manifested through a mesh of sounds. Melting is jumping from one mental state to another, a flat archive of distant and close memories. It is a blend of humor and darkness, nightmare and joy; a trip through different human emotions that listeners are invited to connect with.

Melting was submitted as part of my masters thesis in Digital Media at the University of Arts Bremen. For more info check the website designed by Iulia Radu: abadir-melting.netlify.app I would like to thank my supervisors Petra Klusmeyer and Dennis Paul for their generous support throughout the process of working on my thesis. I would also like to thank Iulia Radu for her great work on the website, and Nabeela Roshdy for creating the websites artwork.” Rami Abadir

Special thanks to Amira Elmasry

ABADIR (Rami Abadir) is a music producer, sound designer, DJ and music critic born in Cairo, Egypt and based in Berlin, Germany. His work combines experimental, club and ambient music, and deals with themes inspired by fiction, memory and cultural artefacts. His albums were released on SVBKVLT, Genot Centre, Hush Hush, Yerevan Tapes, KaerUiks among many other labels. Abadir holds a masters degree in digital media from the University of Arts Bremen.