Murder in the Temple

by Zohra

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Art Fin Solo debut by Zohra of Azar Swan & Religious to Damn with Lydia Lunch guesting on the title track!

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1.	Discipline 06:11	lyrics	buy track
The vast distance From under the cloth To the wilds of the sky Something is crawling The length of my spine Blood from a tear It won’t let us down Discipline Don’t need discipline Pulling perfume Fool of God Blood from the ruin Look out idiot Blood from the mouth You should slow down Idiot Discipline Don’t need discipline Discipline Don’t need discipline, idiot
2.	Drones in a Sky of Swallows 02:33	lyrics	buy track
See over there in the trees drones in the sky in a sky of swallows in hazy red they should come down and play in the strange rain of the Russian flower
3.	Hide Your Nature 02:29	lyrics	buy track
You speak in confusion You steal the fat from a pillage dog Grinding away The beast in the sparrow’s house Why can’t you hide your nature? I see you steal I see you pulling the wire It’s easy! You speak in confusion You steal the fat from a pillage dog Grinding wailing The beast in the sparrow’s house
4.	Look for Love 03:26	lyrics	buy track
What is this sacred weight Heavy in my chest Bringing me to life What is this nested thing Heaving in my chest Breathing me to life You look for love where it can’t hurt you You look for love where it can’t hurt You look for love where it won’t find you You look for love where it can’t hurt I’m all out Out of dying My body is good for two things I’m all out of Out of dying My body is good for two things You look for love where it can’t hurt you You look for love where it can’t hurt You look for love where it won’t find you You look for love where it can’t hurt where it can’t hurt you where it can’t hurt you
5.	Gospel Dirt 02:59	lyrics	buy track
Cradled by a thousand lights Like a thousand evil eyes I watch birds fall from the sky rigid wings stretched out high the chill inside the trench inside my chest Sirens bleed sing our wounds The game is blood Gimme gimme gimme Myth of god Gospel dirt From the rib of the bloated beast Dagger fist desire machines Ripping out souvenirs Climbing vines, heavy wire Love’s chains at my feet calling Sing our wounds The game is blood
6.	Black Box Disco 03:29	lyrics	buy track
When everything was happy
7.	Murder in the Temple 03:59	lyrics	buy track
Spill my blood It won’t wash away your sin Kill my brother It won’t make you king Praying to the prophet Won’t make you rich Another false god You’re his bitch Again Murder in the temple where another man prays Masacre the women if they dare to say Spill my blood won’t wash away your sin Who’s your fucking god who told you kill for him? Justify your violence Claim righteousness Slaughter in the temple Two sides of revenge Seek the path to heaven And you must repent Who’s this god who chose you to die for him?
8.	Empire Grave 04:07	lyrics	buy track
Stuck inside Ceaseless walls Watching the liars burn Pull on the wire of a wrecked out world Watching the liars burn Carried cell, bruised and stiff Watching the liars burn A dagger fist in a daughter-in-law space Watching the liars burn We’re dancing on the empire grave It’s brooding, knowing grief While love, it sleeps Watching the liars burn Life of war Blood to rust! Tulips shot dead Life of war We’re dancing on the empire grave These hands are the grave of an empire This mouth is the grave of an empire These eyes are a grave the grave of an empire This body is the grave of an empire
9.	Split the Sea 03:25	lyrics	buy track
Filling the trench inside my chest Pressing my heart into stone Blood spill from dry earth Feeling it fade Until they split the sea Candled lullaby Harvest the voice cry like a child We are far away Dream of the seed We will return to split the sea
10.	We're Burning 03:24	lyrics	buy track
We're burning

about

Murder in the Temple, Zohra’s solo debut, is both a continuation and departure from her past. Zohra is the fourth daughter from a family of Afghan refugees. She grew up surrounded by her father and family friends playing Afghan folk and pop (like the songs of Afghanistan’s Elvis, Ahmad Zahir) in the living room till dawn, and she woke up to her older sisters dancing in their bedroom to Mary Jane Girls, Peter Gabriel, and New Order. As a teenager, Zohra covered her bedroom walls with posters of Lydia Lunch and Natasha Atlas, and went to school wearing an oversized Babes In Toyland t-shirt. Over the course of the past decade, Zohra went from synthesizing these influences (in Religious to Damn) to compressing them (in Azar Swan). Now, working with producer Ben Greenberg (Metz, The Men, Algiers, Bing and Ruth), Zohra presents them with quiet aplomb. The Afghan melodies in her bones come out subtly, with an ear for modal tones and harmonics from all directions. At times, she dives deep into the kinds of dark pop and synth that she’s explored in Azar Swan, flowing seamlessly from bubblegum radio to batcave goth club. And as for those Lydia Lunch posters, the Queen of No Wave has gone from teen-dream inspiration to IRL mentor, helping with the album art and supplying additional vocals and lyrics to Murder in the Temple’s title song and first single.

The themes on Murder in the Temple are as paradoxically simple and complex as the music. In the last few years, Zohra has seen both the subcultures that gave her solace and the country her family fled used as catspaws by various rival factions, none of whom seemed to give a single damn about her humanity or anyone else's. When Zohra started making music, equally enthralled by Kate Bush and Fairuz, her identity was the last thing she wanted to have to focus on. How could she use what she was perfectly busy simply being? But the world is what it is; so, before any of it can be spoken ugly from idiot’s mouths, Zohra proudly sings and speaks her history, her family’s Muslim heritage, her own black-clad weirdo-ness, and unashamed Stevie-esque, shawl-spinning femininity (after all, one person’s Stevie-esque shawl is another’s chador).

Zohra built the record slowly, piece by piece, over the course of a few years, a time that she pinballed between circumstance-defying hope and complete alienation. She wrote and recorded in New York, when it seemed like the entire country had decided her people had no value, and in a sweltering, locked-down New Orleans, where she adopted two cats and devoted her energies to becoming adept at various analog and modular synths and drum machines she had accrued while recording with Azar Swan (while still letting the cats occasionally use the midi for a bed). She wrote songs about drones, religion, human frailty, love, hate, and getting free at any cost. Channeling the confusion and sickness around her, Zohra utilized extended vocal techniques and old Bobbie Gentry song patter to make a music as audacious as it was comforting. While it shouldn’t need to be said, of course it must be made clear that Zohra wrote and recorded all the instruments on Murder in the Temple herself. Returning to NYC, she handed the tracks to Ben Greenberg and said, “go nuts.” And when he did, she knew the work was done. It’s a bracing record, full of the sort of off-kilter chances that can only come when one has nothing left to lose.

credits

released March 17, 2023

Murder in the Temple was produced and mixed by Ben Greenberg at Circular Ruin Studio

Voices, synths, drum programming, guitar, and percussion by Zohra

All songs written, performed, and recorded by Zohra except for title track, “Murder In The Temple”, written and performed by Zohra and Lydia Lunch

Mastered by Matt Colton at Metropolis

Photography by Jasmine Hirst

Design by Iman Mourtaza

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Zohra New York, New York

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