It took more than 20 years, some technological intervention and a transcontinental collaboration to finish “Reunion Time.” The song appears on Calling Manila (Happiness/PSR), the first new studio album from Salim and Faris Nourallah in more than a quarter century. The impetus for the belated follow-up to the duo’s self-titled 2000 debut came a few years ago, when Salim unearthed nearly a dozen unfinished songs his brother had written some 20 years earlier. Among them was the barely minute-long fragment “Reunion Time.”
“I thought it was excellent the first time I heard it,” says Salim. “But it needed to become something more substantial.”
But there were some complications. Salim was stationed in Dallas, not far from where the Britpop-obsessed duo got its start. And though he’s since returned to Texas, Faris was living in Manila at the time. Using audio-separation technology, they isolated Faris’ original vocal and expanded the song’s structure. Salim also added a new verse of his own and handled bass. The Figgs’ Pete Hayes contributed drums.
For Faris, the original take came from a considerably less upbeat place than the song’s title might suggest. “I was living in a ramshackle little place behind a house that doubled as my recording studio,” he says. “It resembled a barn more than a home. After some beers and an ocean of tears, I wrote this song. I no longer cared to understand the hearts of the disloyal.”
The video emerged from its own unlikely series of events. This past July, Salim encountered an AI-animated video for Paul McCartney’s “Ram On.” The black-and-white clip depicted a bearded, circa-1971 Macca wandering through the Welsh countryside. “I’d previously seen a lot of AI-generated content and disliked most of it,” says Salim. “But this was different—I could feel the artistry at work.”
The video was the handiwork of Thomas Walsh, the Irish musician and visual artist best known as the frontman of Pugwash. He crafted the visuals for “Reunion Time” with no creative input from the Nourallahs.
“When he sent me the first cut, I was blown away,” says Salim. “It was haunting and eerie, but also deeply touching.”
We’re proud to premiere the Nourallah Brothers’ “Reunion Time” video. Calling Manila is out now.
—Hobart Rowland
