Kiss Facility’s debut album KHAZNA¹ blends shoegaze tracks with the ethereal electronic production expected of Salvador Navarrete (aka Sega Bodega) and the mesmerizing vocals of Mayah Alkhateri. if i may be a little obsessive, this album has been on repeat for a reason. i mean seriously, just listen to this:

KHAZNA is at times jangly and out of tune like any good shoegaze ought to be, and yet delivers so much more than you might expect. this is shoegaze that’s moved well past the genre’s origins in mumbled vocals buried under walls of noise² — though Ishara, Flesh Mix, and Qamar 14 would still sound right at home coming out of a stack of amps driven hard enough to make Kevin Shields reach for earplugs. Kiss Facility periodically steps out of the form with tracks like Kotshena, at once reminiscent of alt-rock ballads and trance (i’m not kidding), and the softer, gently melodic love songs Plasma and Absent From My Eyes. despite these wide-ranging explorations and the fact KHAZNA both opens and closes with songs unlikely to find their way onto a classics of the genre playlist, the through-line is undoubtedly shoegaze. every bit of Salvador’s production retains a quality that makes you want to close your eyes, turn up the volume, and dissolve.

while you needn’t speak Egyptian Arabic to inhabit the melancholic, introspective world of Mayah’s lyricism (her vocals are musical in such a way that you can treat them perfectly well as another instrument in the composition), it’s worth listening to the album a second time with the translations on hand. her writing rewards a careful read alongside the backing tracks, and not so much for its complexity—the meaning of every song is plain as day—as for its simple honesty and vulnerability. if you’re one to get pulled into the emotional current of an album, this is as good a time as any to learn the words by heart (or as close as you can get with a translation).

this first full-length entry from the duo is more than a genre exercise meant to challenge your idea of what can be labeled “shoegaze”. it’s a genuine reflection of both Salvador’s and Mayah’s musical inclinations, with echoes of their own independent projects. it helps that Kiss Facility is itself a cosmopolitan proposition—did i mention Mayah (Emirati-Egyptian) and Salvador (Irish-Chilean) are a couple?³—and KHAZNA feels like it. my recurring thought while listening has been “if this kind of music is the future, then sign me the fuck up”.

you can listen to the full album on Bandcamp, Spotify, or Apple Music