I wasn’t that thought

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I wasn’t that thought is a massive album, though not in duration, budget, or personnel. And though it’s enthusiastically loud and angular, its immensity is subtle. This album’s power is its evocation of scale, like a loved one’s iris mirroring Jupiter’s relentless storm in miniature.

In one moment, IWTT surges with revelations of love and euphoric discovery. In the next - a bug, a meal, and a cloud are its fascinations. Sometimes it’s buoyant and unbothered - propelled by clean and stilted, almost-math guitar grooves, and bursting with extra-gooey feel. Later, it reveals murk and curdled rage with square wave shrieks and amps on the brink of malfunction. Of course, the album’s vast range makes sense when you recognize that the person credited as both its muse and narrator is the premium vessel for life’s echoes between large and small  - a toddler. 

Sijal Nasralla, the person behind the name DUNUMS, wrote nearly all the songs on IWTT from the perspective of his daughter. In his words, “most of the album is from the perspective and voice of Tasneem -- her wonder, earliest impressions of our world, her first hurts, her big messes, our traumas, and what life feels like when change is overwhelming. There are songs here on love - its projections and protections, the kind of love I have for myself, the way it is our magnet towards the world we all deserve and don’t have right now.” 

The breadth of love, both universal and intimate, elicited by IWTT is profound. In these songs, love is truth and genesis; The only meaningful future for humanity. It’s also, notably, the forge in which the understanding of and resistance to injustice is wrought. More than any other DUNUMS album, IWTT professes that exuberant love is the truest tool for dismantling oppression and marries that concept to Sijal’s experience as a Palestinian in the U.S. In his words, “the band envisions its work and creativity as inextricable from its members' rooted histories in Palestine, as well as their assimilation into the American South.”

The record’s lead single, binti, is a paragon of the album’s combined political and emotional weight. The song is best explained by Sijal:

“When I was 12 I saw Mohammad Al Durra get shot on tv in his father’s arms and it destroyed me. He was also 12.

In 2008 I sat horrified with the story of Amal, Kanan, Mona, and Mahmoud – four child survivors of a massacre on the street they lived on – Samouni street, a street that carries their family’s name. A few years later, they made an animated video to tell their story. Their art was a practice of hope amidst overwhelming pain that burdened me for years, the rest of the world around me appeared unphased.

The original version of this song appeared on my first solo record in 2011. In the summer of 2023 my lovely friends reimagined it with me. Turned the isolation that I felt in my grief into one of collective dignity and mourning. Balanced the horror with the hope that we will heal, refresh our spirits and the land. راح نشرب ماي وراح نقول خي.

Now I have a daughter named Tasneem. I sing her lullabies in Arabic to teach her safety, love, and imagination. We sing about how fish swim, how the most wonderous flowers bear her names, and how safe little baby chicks feel wrapped in their mama hen’s loving embrace. The immense goodness of things that can be. هالصيصان, شو حلوين. She is also learning how truly monstrous our world can be. 

For the release of this single we wanted to recreate some of the feeling we captured in the studio when we first recorded it for this new record. We returned with cameras on and added even more friends. Once again, we laced our fingers with griefs’. Created a new artifact towards the ledger of our collective goodness. Not unaware of what we face. Even in the warm Sun or among puppies that toss at our feet. We sing and scream for you, habaybna falasteenia. With or without our bodies, we will never let each other go.”

Album bio by Saman Khoujinian

Vinyl/ CD Preorder

Production Credits

• All songs written by Sijal Nasralla

• Produced by Sijal Nasralla and David Barrett 

• “binti” was tracked and mixed by Saman Khoujinian at Big Fish Small Pond studios in Pittsboro, NC. 

• All remaining songs were tracked by Sijal Nasralla and David Barrett at Mangum Street Grocery and Sijal’s home in Durham – engineered and mixed by David Barrett. 

• Mastered by Saman Khoujinian  

• Cover art by Saba Taj 

• Photos by Erin Scannell 

• “binti” cover collage by Sijal Nasralla. Art by Mona, Kamal, Amal, Mahmoud Samouni

• Art direction by Gabe Anderson