After a somewhat prolific 2016, in which Hanni El Khatib released no fewer than 5 EP's, he's started 2017 by packaging them all together along with several new songs into one, blockbusting 19-track album.
Hanni El Khatib’s first idea for his Savage Times project was to do something he’d never done before. Instead, he ended up doing … well, everything he’d never done before. He’d be playing new instruments, writing in unfamiliar new ways, opening himself up to an unrelenting stream of ideas and dedicating himself totally to pure musical instinct.
Originally, he’d hoped to explode the lingering idea that he was simply a blues-rock guitar player, left over from his first single and his work with the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach: that’s why Savage Times touches everything from garage rock to punk to disco, hip-hop and even some unexpected solo-guitar self-portraiture. But on the way, he also exploded his own idea of what he could do—even maybe who he was, or would be. Savage Times was an experiment, but an experience, too.