Shkoon

(SY/DE)

When Ameen Khayer and Thorben Niessner crossed paths in Hamburg in 2015, they perhaps never imagined that this union would give rise to one of the most interesting projects in contemporary electronic music with Arab DNA. Under the name Shkoon, the German-Syrian duo has built their own language, in which synthesizers dance with oriental maqams and traditional folklore gains new life under a digital pulse. The album debut came in 2019 with ‘Rima’, a record that immediately caught the attention of critics and the public, elevating Shkoon to the forefront of the so-called ‘electro-oriental’. But it was live, on stages across Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, that the duo confirmed the emotional power of their music. Ameen, a Syrian with refugee status, carries in his lyrics and samples samples the story of a people in constant transition. Thorben, a German with a degree in sound engineering, builds the atmospheres where this story echoes with weight and beauty.

‘FIRAQ’, released in 2022, recorded this intensity in a live album that is not limited to compiling songs: it documents a moment — intimate, ritual, collective. Meanwhile, ‘Masrahiya’, a 2023 album, delves into more conceptual and cinematic territory. In Arabic, the title means ‘theater play’, and it is in this ambiguous space between reality and staging that the banners move. Fragments of voice, delicate instrumentation, vintage samples vintage and engaging beats make up an album that defies linearity and proposes an immersive — almost mystical — experience. Earlier this year, the duo also released ‘>1 Greater Than One’, a new EP that accentuates the power of their vision. Over the years, Shkoon hasn’t just mixed sounds; it mixed worlds. The music, which starts from pain and memory, from diaspora and belonging, has become a meeting place between cultures, where Western electronics welcomes Arabic singing without the exotic or the cliché.