Wishamalii (FI/JO)

Nemat Battah – Voice & Oud
Kari Ikonen – Piano w. Maqiano™ Microtuning System, Moog Synthesizer
Abdissa Assefa – Percussion

Listen to the album “al-Bahr” on Soundcloud: https://on.soundcloud.com/vMGgo …or on other commercial streaming platforms: https://bfan.link/albahr

**Album nominated for the Emma Award (Finland’s Grammy) // Recepient of the Indie Award // Nominated for Der Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik // Top 10 World Music Charts Oct 2024 // One of the 8 favorite 2024 albums by YLE **

“Beautiful, touching album” –Salt Peanuts (DK)

“There’s so much going on with Wishamalii’s debut album that it almost invents a whole new genre of its own.” -Songlines (UK)

”Wishamalii bringt frischen Wind in die Welt-musik-Szene” -Nordis Magazin (DE)

This fine ensemble is set up by three adventurous musicians from very different geological and musical backgrounds. Praised for its totally unique music, abundance of sounds and colours, and for its charming spirit on stage, the trio gets one more wow for the pianist’s revolutionary invention – the Maqiano™ Microtuning System, that allows him to play the Arabic maqam modes and other micro-intervals on acoustic piano! 

The name Wishamalii refers to the Nordic way of interpreting the Arab-Andalusian Muwashah-songs, yet most of its repertoire is original music specially written for this band. German label Nordic Notes released their debut album ”Al-Bahr” in October 2024. The album got the Indie Award, and was nominated for Emma Award and its German equivalent Der Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik.

Palestinian-Jordanian singer, oudist and composer Nemat Battah, is an active and appreciated musician in the creative Global Music scene in Finland and Sweden. She also works as lecturer at the Global Music Department, Sibelius Academy in Helsinki.

Award-winning Finnish composer and pianist Kari Ikonen is quite an original in today’s music panorama. He’s constantly exploring new paths to go, inspired by different music cultures of the universe. He keeps touring the world as a solo pianist and with several Finnish and international groups. 

Ethiopian-born Abdissa Assefa is by far the most prominent percussionist in Finland, always naturally embedding his very own, soundful rhythm craft in any band, situation or genre.

Three demo-videos:

Al Bahr: https://youtu.be/S8wu33G8VJ0

Lullaby: https://youtu.be/h1U-qUiHBaw

La Paz Eterna: https://youtu.be/PpTp7uNpgtw

Booking worldwide except Finland:

Saurabooking / Vija Moore / vija at saurabooking.com / +358 44 902 1721

Booking for Finland:

M. Agency / Margit Ojaniemi / margit.ojaniemi@gmail.com / 040-7233698