Pharoah Chromium Chronicles the weight of witness on New LP

Born from summer 2023 sessions built around flutes, EWI (an analogue synth played like a wind instrument), and rhythm-driven electronics drawing on belly dancing beats, the material found its emotional anchor through an unexpected dialogue with Chants Révolutionnaires d’Oman—a 1975 release on the French label Expression Spontanée featuring voices of Omani revolutionary youth.

The album’s architecture tells a harrowing story. Side A is dedicated to the children of Gaza, channelling hope and resilience through those borrowed Omani children’s voices – offering a vision of possibility in the Middle East without exploiting the sounds of an ongoing genocide. It’s an act of radical care, finding ways to speak to unspeakable horror without reducing suffering to spectacle.

Side B grows darker and more funerary, reflecting the escalation following October 7. Here, trumpeter Philipp Selalmazidis—a recent collaborator – adds weight and urgency as adolescent voices give way to adult ones, filling the space with anger and ideological rhetoric. It’s a stark progression from innocence to confrontation, from hope to mourning, that mirrors the conflict’s own devastating trajectory.

Recorded between October 2023 and February 2024 at Serpent’s Egg in Berlin and mastered by Gonçalo F. Cardoso, Chronicles from the Arab Cold War arrives as a work of mourning and resistance built on improbable connections. In Barakat’s hands, music becomes a form of solidarity and a refusal to look away.

Chronicles from the Arab Cold War is released via Discrepant on 27th February 2026.