#11 Sicaria
On tagine, gluten-free dining, and Georgian walnut sauce
Hackney-based DJ and producer Sicaria – real name Lou Nour – is gearing up for her debut UK tour when I phone her. Titled BACK2BASICS, it finds her hitting up Manchester, London, Leeds, Bristol and Glasgow. “No phones, no visuals, no (big) lights, no fuss,” she wrote in the accompanying promo. According to her, it’s an opportunity for her to get back to the community feel of dance music. “It’s funny because it relates to my upbringing – my family being Moroccan, it was very normal for us to be left with the neighbours, for their kids to come to ours, we were looked after by several people.” She’s always kept that community aspect in mind, even in music: “The bigger I’ve grown, the more alien this career has felt to me, or DJing has felt to me, because I’m not used to feeling so isolated.”
A few years back, Sicaria Sound, the duo she’d founded with her friend Sancha Ndeko (now known as Mia Koden) amicably went their separate ways. The pair bonded over their love of dubstep, having met at the back of a lecture hall, before coming to play at sound system events and holding a residency for the Deep Medi Musik label. As Sicaria, though, Nour has been creating 140BPM-centric work that’s also inspired by the likes of Arab rap, baile funk and nu-metal, as per last year’s Blood, Sweat & Self EP.
She’s now attempting to recreate the intimate, community-led feel of those early parties she played at through the tour, which kicks off this weekend. “It's me wanting to kind of go back and emulate that for the new generation, because clubs are closing at an unprecedented rate in the UK, and I think it’s important to now create spaces so that people can experience what I was able to experience.”
The no-phones policy was inspired by clubs such as Fold and fabric, but also Open Ground in Wuppertal, Germany, a venue in a converted underground bunker that she describes as “one of the best spaces.” People leave their phones at home when they go there, she says, a fact that’s helped by it being located in a small town. “It was the first time I'd stayed out – bear in mind I'm sober – until six in the morning, because I felt like I could dance with people, and it not be, you know, constant photos and messages.”
At each BACK2BASICS night, she’s holding a dedicated producer playback session during the first hour, so that budding beatmakers can come and test their tunes on a big system. “They’re welcome to come and plug in their USB, listen to their mixdown, or if it’s a tune they’ve played out a few times, maybe see if it hits differently. Not everyone has the privilege of having their dubs run out in a club. I really started to understand, when I was [first] making music, that there’s a huge difference between making stuff on your laptop and testing it out. Because of that, they’re not able to grow past a certain point.” She adds that she’s aiming to grow the concept into something bigger next year, so watch this space.
Does your Moroccan heritage mean you grew up eating some amazing food?
It’s funny, my parents tried to do a 23andMe, to trace my lineage. And it was just like, you're 100% Moroccan! Gordon Ramsay recently said that Moroccan cuisine is the best in the world. Growing up I was actually sceptical of other foods, because I was eating the best of the best, I guess. I remember my grandma feeding me couscous, like proper Moroccan couscous, with her hands, because in Morocco we generally eat with our hands, or we'll eat with bread with our hands and dip into a shared plate. I also remember eating chicken with preserved lemon and olives – we're so big on olives, to the point where I could literally eat a whole… you know you get them packets of olives, I'll always be buying one from the shop when I'm going to an event. Another one is lamb tagine with prunes. That one is pretty hard to cook, so I always try to get it from elsewhere, if I can!
Do you have a tagine at home?
I do, but I'm such a cheat. I will cook my food in a normal pan and then put it in a tagine, which is the naughty way to do it. There are some places in Marrakesh that do that, so you’ve got to be careful. Sometimes I just serve it in the tagine, but the best way to do it is actually to cook it in the pot. It just takes a while. I think you can always tell – if it's really flaky, it was definitely cooked in the pot. If it feels like... not bland, but a bit chewy, it's not been left to stew for too long. Also, you've got to have the authentic tagine pot from Morocco, because there’s a lot of pots that are sold for decoration now, and you can’t really use them.
Then I used to love a dish called rfissa – marinated savoury pancakes mixed with lentils and onions and chicken and noodles. It sounds so bizarre, but it's honestly one of the most amazing things you can eat, because all of the carb sources. You'll cook it for like six hours and by the end… oh my god, it's probably the most moreish thing you can eat, and it's probably one of the worst things you can eat!
Why do you say used to love?
I can’t eat it any more because I have coeliac disease, which has definitely shaped what I can and can’t eat. In this city there’s a lot of gluten-free options now, compared to when I was diagnosed almost 10 years ago. I got into the habit of learning how to cook for myself, because there were dishes that I couldn’t find out and about. At first, it was difficult finding places to eat. But one of the first restaurants I went to was Niche Gluten-free Dining in Islington. They have a whole bunch of food on the menu that is pretty impossible to find elsewhere!
Has being coeliac made things difficult when touring and going out to eat?
In a lot of Asian countries they put a lot of soy sauce in everything – which has gluten in it. Some countries just don't recognise coeliac as a disease so you have to make do. But on the flipside, a country that took me by surprise was Georgia. I was booked to play a show in Tbilisi and I stayed the whole weekend. Eating the food there was luxurious, because it's a lot of dairy and meat, which is naturally gluten free, and vegetables. I bought a little jar of sauce to recreate at home: this walnut sauce called bazhe.
Where do you go to eat Moroccan in London?
I’ve tried a few places to see if I can get the real deal. I think the closest place to authentic cuisine in London is this tiny cafe called Angel Tagine. It’s pretty close to what I feel like is some of the best Moroccan cuisine. But for me, I always want to go to my auntie’s house or my mum's house. Because we don't have a huge Moroccan diaspora in London any more, it’s really hard to find restaurants. They’re kind of few and far between. [After looking it up and finding out that it’s closed]: Oh damn, that’s so sad! I was literally there in January, but also it’s a sign of the times. A lot of Moroccan restaurants have closed because of the economy so, unfortunately, this one is just another to add to that list.
And you cook a lot at home?
If I have the time, absolutely, that’s one of my favourite things to do. My boyfriend is very spoiled, but he knows this. He tells a lot of his friends that he’s quite lucky to have a girlfriend at home that cooks restaurant-standard meals! That’s a love language to me, though, cooking for other people. Because, growing up, I would cook for my family a lot.
Do you have a signature dish?
Something I cook a lot is… people in the UK call it shakshuka, but we don’t call it shakshuka in Morocco. But it’s really, really easy to make. If I’m ever in a rush, I can just throw together some meatballs, make them in a nice tomato-y sauce, and then fry some eggs on top, and it’s something quite unusual that you wouldn’t think of as a meal. But it’s a great staple for me. And also it seems impressive because, again, if you put it in a tagine pot, people are like, ‘Oh my God!’
Is there anything on your rider that’s edible?
My rider is so dry! Honestly, I rocked up to a gig the other day and they were like, ‘Oh, is your rider tailored to your individual needs?’ They were like, it’s such a standard rider, like water, nuts and sugar-free Red Bull. Because I don’t drink, either, I’m sober now. But after hearing that I was like, OK, I’m gonna start throwing a curveball in there, like a fun scratchcard. That's now on my rider.
That’s a great shout.
If these lot are spending £40 on bottles for other people, they can do five pound for a scratchcard, right? I always tell the promoter I’ll split it with them if I do win.◼︎
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