During its first six years, Nationale hosted monthly events, from poetry readings to intimate concerts, from serious lectures to silly dance performances. We built a strong community around them and even though we had to slow things down with the arrival of baby Lou, we are back at it this month with a special record release + concert by Nationale alum, Ilyas Ahmed. Please join us on Thursday, May 14 (7 p.m.) as we celebrate the release of I Am All Your Own, his newest album on Immune Recordings.

Ilyas Ahmed’s songs exist in a sublime moment of suspended animation, calmly dwelling in between modes of music making both timeless and contemporary - deeply imbued with stillness and peace. On I Am All Your Own, his first album in three years, Ahmed employs strategies gleaned from experimental and ambient musicians, such as Lawrence English and Fripp & Eno, and applies them to song-based guitar music. Building slowly and purposefully, each individual track adds to the album’s overall, scrupulously-forged contour. His most direct work, Ahmed’s voice is brought to the fore and unobscured. Like the best work of his friend and collaborator Liz Harris (Grouper), as well as classic touchstones such as the Velvet Underground’s self-titled third album and David Crosby’s “If I Could Only Remember My Name,” Ahmed’s latest is sentimental and emotive, while remaining hushed and understated. I Am All Your Own is a record for late nights and early mornings, those times spent in solitude and reflection.