Belgian artist Youniss will release his ambitious new album, 'Good Effort!', on March 18th with VIERNULVIER Records. Inspired by the concept of the city as a living, complex entity - a feeling Youniss describes as the difference between "living in a city [and] just being in that city" - Good Effort! is an open-ended narrative drawn from the artist's own experiences, including growing up on the outskirts of Antwerp.
Like a vibrant city itself, the album is a culmination of organic interactions, layered with diverse perspectives from a collective of artists. Good Effort! features a dynamic cast of collaborators, including international heavyweights like Pink Siifu, Petite Noir, and Quelle Chris, alongside celebrated names from the Belgian underground such as Dienne and Porcelain id.
While retaining his critical edge - especially on themes like gentrification, an acute problem in his home city - Youniss explores the full range of his voice across the album's tracks, resulting in a warmer, more texturally diverse sound.
Tracks like “Notice,” “Glass Ceilings,” and “The Sun Is Falling” expand his textural use of distortion, while others, such as “At the Still Point of the World” and “Why Don’t You?”, float at a more tranquil register. The record's energy peaks on “TakeThat” where Pink Siifu and Youniss trade frenetic bars atop jazzy drum freakouts.
Despite the cynicism forged by witnessing his environment change - like the flattening of the beloved venue Onder Stroom for a parking space - Youniss offers a crucial message of perseverance. The album's title, Good Effort!, is a defiant embrace of trying again.
About Youniss
Antwerp-based multi-disciplinary artist Youniss Ahamad operates much like a quantum particle, constantly resisting categorization and knowability. His live performances at festivals like Rewire, Roadburn and Les Nuits Botanique have gained him notoriety as a musical firebrand mixing post-punk, hiphop, and noise. Ahamad’s unique path in the Belgian underground has been influenced by his ancestral roots in Cote D’Ivoire and Iraq. His experience growing up in the Antwerp suburbs as a Black person with an Arabic name inspired 2023’s White Space, marking a shift from cerebral dance music to distorted, experimental storytelling.
Each subsequent record has seen Ahamad shift his sound. Yet the overall trend has been toward more live, visceral performances: White Space was an outburst of electric guitar, spitfire vocals, and barbed breakbeats. 2024 EP Do We Try Beyond The Edge? continued in this vein, sharpening his lyrical bite against the colonial structures that still pervade everyday life in Belgium. On his upcoming record Ahamad steps out from behind the distortion, exploring the full range of his voice.
If one thing is consistent about Youniss, it’s his knack for breaking with expectation in a way that expands the field of sonic possibility.