What sparks your memories the most? Maybe it is the taste of your mother’s apple pie, baked on Sundays and waking you up with its sweetness. Or perhaps the perfume your grandmother wore, a scent you once tried on yourself while she was out shopping, not realising it would linger with you for years. Or maybe it is just a song.

Researches show that music is one of the strongest keys to unlocking memory — and the more that time of life is filled with self-defining experiences, the more powerful the effect becomes. While studies explain the effect in a very neuroscientific way, the truth of it feels softer and warmer, wrapped in nostalgia. Think about it: when you suddenly hear a song you haven’t listened to in years, where do you feel it?

Ali Al Shehabi, the Bahraini photographer known for telling stories through his lens, tried the experiment himself. Which songs came rushing back, and what memories did they spark? He shares them with us.