I'm scared
So afraid to show I care
Will he think me weak
If I tremble when I speak?

So Afraid to Show I Care sees Theo Alexander & Qow assume the role of gleaners and foragers, collecting fragments from over a year of collaboration to produce a palimpsest of sonic layers. Their 30-minute micro-epic is built on an ethic of bricolage, covering tape-recorded ambience, voice note instrumentals, warped acapellas and growling double basses, all of which play out in an uninterrupted narrative.

As unabashedly experimental as it is emotional, the album’s diverse landscape features Egyptian spoken word artist otteswed (formerly known as Aly Talibab) and improvising contrabassist Klára Pudláková. On the leading single, Addictive, Pudláková’s double bass, enters into a melodic dialogue with yearning vocal samples. Towards the end of the album, otteswed delivers an existential soliloquy above waves of organ chords performed by Theo Alexander who sampled church organs from Prague, London and Orford. This album brings together material from a string of high-profile premieres across Europe and the UK featuring a rotating cast of collaborators.

Along with the digital release of the album, comes a limited-edition double cassette tape that includes both the album and selected Live performances from CTM festival ‘25, and PAF festival ‘24 featuring George Cremaschi on Contrabass.

Theo Alexander (London, UK) and Qow (Cairo, Egypt) began working together in 2023, and have respectively been featured in NPR, The Quietus, The Wire, and supported by Shape+, Britten-Pears Arts, and others.

Music written and composed by Theo Alexander & Omar El Sadek
Double bass on Tracks 3, 5, and 9 by Klára Pudláková
Double bass on Live Recording tape by George Cremaschi
Vocals on Track 7 by otteswed
Mixed & Mastered by Oliver Torr
Live recording mixed by George Cremaschi
Artwork by Omar El Sadek, design by Niels Wehrspann