London-based Egyptian-French filmmaker and artist Susu Laroche (one half of Fertile Crescent with Oxhy, and most recently released a collaborative project with Mobbs on Modern Love) returns with a long-awaited new solo album.
After the discovery of an artefact known only as ‘Body 53’ in the British Museum – ‘human skeletal remains; ribbon; comb; diadem; ear-ring; collar; necklace; bowl; cosmetic sample’ – Laroche inquired deeper into the connections to where the body was found, at the Royal Cemetery at Ur in Southern Iraq. Coming across Queen Puabi, a prominent figure in ancient Sumer found at the same grounds, the artist drew parallels between the shadowy figure often cited as a queen, consort, or priestess, with the Sufi female saint, Rabia. Alongside these mytho-historical documentations, her work with Sufi texts including ‘Al Hallaj Tawasin’ (Book of the Purity of the Glory of the One) formed the basis of the lyrics embedded in the album. ‘War Against The Lie’ devises a para-fictional account of a historical law that governed this period of ancient Zoroastrian civilisation in Persia, and a buried demand for truth.
