Review
Genre and Mood
Ash and Naila made Sing It Back as deep house, and the song they sing comes from Moloko. The interview that tells its story hears “lustful lyrics” and an “attractive melody”, right both for a late-night drive and for a crowd of dancers in a club. Sultry and alluring is this page’s reading of that description.
Song Summary
The release credits name Róisín Murphy and Mark Brydon, the two members of Moloko, as the song’s writers and lyricists, and Ashraf Moawad, Ash’s own name, as producer: it is a new version of the song Moloko first released on their 1998 album I Am Not a Doctor. Ash told 90.3 FM The Core how it began. Naila had come back to work on another track; after a day of projects that went nowhere, as she was about to leave around midnight, he asked her to stay, deleted four or five hours of work and started something new, different and crazy. That night they made Sing It Back. It was released on 16 February 2018 and runs four minutes and twelve seconds.
Musical Breakdown
No source walks through this version part by part, so this breakdown points to what the sources name rather than mapping it.
Intro
Listen for how a deep house track opens before the voice: what sets the pulse, and how soon the melody appears.
Main Section
Naila sings the lyric over Ash’s production. The sources describe the melody and the lyric’s mood, not the arrangement; listen for what is kept from the original song and what is new.
Outro
Listen for how the track ends, and whether it leaves the voice or the groove last.
Concepts in Focus
Sing It Back is a cover version that grew from a fresh session rather than from Moloko’s recording. Murphy began the lyric while clubbing in New York and knew the song was a dance track at heart; Moloko first recorded it differently, and it was Boris Dlugosch’s remix, heard also in Purple Disco Machine, Boris Dlugosch, Karen Harding – Love for Days (feat. Karen Harding), that reached number four in the UK in 1999. Ash’s version takes the song back to the dance floor.
The credit shows two ways to share a track. The recording is credited to Ash & Naila, and the release title names her as a <a href=“https://korczis.github.io/sonic-playground/concept/featured-artist/” class=“concept-link font-medium text-primary-700 underline decoration-dotted underline-offset-4 hover:decoration-solid dark:text-primary-400” data-concept=“featured-artist” title=“A guest performer credited on another artist’s track, usually as “feat.”: a rapper’s verse, a singer’s hook or a second voice. Features bring together different styles and audiences and are central to hip-hop, R&B and dance music.“>featured artist: Sing It Back (feat. Naila).
Artistic Context
Ash was born and raised in Cairo, played piano from the age of seven and moved to Montreal in 2014 to study. The interview calls him one of the forerunners of Middle Eastern-infused deep house; he names the guitar playing a Middle Eastern melody as his signature. He had produced big room house and trance before his track Lost, and from 2015 he worked with Naila, a friend’s cousin, on original songs and versions of hits such as Adele’s Hello.
Impact and Reception
According to the interview, Sing It Back reached number twelve on Greece’s most Shazamed songs and passed four million streams. Hear Moloko’s original, then this version, and listen to a song carried twenty years on.
