As the year winds down, we asked every artist whose music Ruptured released in 2025 to share the records that stayed closest to them over the past months.
Published here over the coming days, these end-of-season charts gather the albums that accompanied writing, touring, waiting, and living through it all.
A monthly selection of alternative, ambient and experimental music from Lebanon and the MENA region, selected by music promoter and label owner Ziad Nawfal – this broadcast features a guest mix by Lebanese journalist, programmer and DJ SHIRINE SAAD. Originally commissioned by Stegi Radio and produced by Onassis Stegi.
Shirine Saad is a Beirut-born journalist, programmer and DJ focusing on culture and social change. They were Assistant Professor of the Practice in Arts Journalism and Criticism at Brown University, where they were the Founding Editor of a new multimedia arts journal, MOVEMENTS. They are a PhD candidate in Philosophy, Art and Social Thought at the European Graduate School.
“How do we listen together after genocide? Can sound carry the weight of memory, dissent, and survival? This mix threads guerrilla feminist and queer expressions through layers of noise, static, and fracture, remixing the sonic remnants of techno-dystopian destruction into resonant acts of defiance and care.”
TRACK LISTING:
1. Yara Asmar – all that has been seen will have been seen for nothing
2. Faten Kanaan – Three Arches
3. Mayssa Jallad – Kharita
4. Fatima Al Qadiri – Gumar (Moon)
5. Floy Krouchi – COUVRE FEU (feat. Kamilya Jubran)
6. Sandy Chamoun / Anthony Sahyoun / Jad Atoui – Hayawanon Ghader
7. Pollution Opera (Elvin Brandhi & Nadah El Shazly – Cairo???
8. Asma Ghanem – We’ve Got a Life in Illusion
9. Basel Abbas & Ruanne Abou-Rahme – After everything is extracted
10. Sabine Salamé – A City Without People
11. Makimakkuk – Bidaeyat
12. Maurice Louca – Rupture (El Kontessa Remix)
13. Deena Abdelwahed – Pre Island (33EMYBW)
14. dj haram – Handplay
Mayssa Jallad will appear at Rewire Festival (The Hague) in April 2026 for two separate performances.
On 10 April, she presents Marjaa: The Battle of the Hotels as a trio with Julia Sabra and Pascal Semerdjian, performing the work in its full live arrangement.
On 12 April, she returns for a second appearance with Swedish producer Civilistjävel!, following his contribution to Marjaa: The Battle of the Hotels – Versions. This set extends the dialogue they began on the remix album, opening another window into the project’s sonic world.
A monthly selection of alternative, ambient and experimental music from Lebanon and the MENA region, selected by music promoter and label owner Ziad Nawfal – this broadcast features a guest mix by Lebanese dreampop duo SNAKESKIN (Julia Sabra & Fadi Tabbal). Originally commissioned by Stegi Radio and produced by Onassis Stegi.
Snakeskin is a Beirut-based duo making electronic dreampop that incorporates ambient, industrial, and experimental elements. The project brings together producer and musician Fadi Tabbal and singer songwriter Julia Sabra, also a member of indie trio Postcards.
The duo’s third album We live in sand will be released on October 10, 2025 as a co-release between Ruptured and Beacon Sound. Written as the war in Gaza spread to Lebanon, it is their starkest and most immediate work to date, combining industrial beats, ambient dirges, and Julia’s distinctive vocals.
TRACK LISTING:
1- Snakeskin: Ready
2- Nadah El Shazly: Kaabi Ali
3- Lucrecia Dalt: Caes (feat. Camille Mandoki)
4- SANAM: Goblin
5- Snakeskin: October sun
6- Kelly Moran: Don’t Trust Mirrors
7- Sary Moussa: Everywhere at Once
8- Jerusalem In My Heart: Ana Lisan Wahad (feat. Farida Amadou & Pierre-Guy Blanchard)
9- Dina El Wedidi: The Moon
10- Gizzmo: A Change in the Seasons
11- Snakeskin: Blindsided
12- Mabe Fratti: Kravitz
13- Postcards: Poison
14- Blood Orange: Look at You
15- Snakeskin: Black water
“With dark minimalism orchestrated from the bottom of the vortex, if We live in sand doesn’t reduce you to tears, then you’re probably hollow inside. The best art often comes from the darkest places; the same ones many of us will never encounter.” – Simon Kirk, Sun-13https://sun-13.com/2025/10/10/snakeskin-we-live-in-sand/
“There’s a chilling disconnect at the heart of Lebanese duo Snakeskin’s third album, We live in sand: On the surface, their music invokes a lineage of wistfully melodic electronic pop. But once you dig into the album’s lyrics, a far bleaker scenario presents itself. Beneath the sweetness of the music, Sabra lays bare the tragedy playing out across the border—and on our screens, in our feeds, in our thoughts and consciences.” – Phil Sherburne via substack https://futurismrestated.substack.com/p/fr-140-spheres-nexuses-horizons
“There’s an uncompromising authenticity to the album, presenting each track as a visceral interpretation of mourning. Amidst the starkness, hope could easily seem lost. Yet the album’s most powerful moments emerge in subtle but striking sparks of defiance and resilience; and that, in itself, is a form of hope.” – SceneNoisehttps://scenenoise.com/New-Music/Snakeskin-s-We-Live-in-Sand-Captures-Hope-Amidst-Destruction
“There’s an atmosphere of grief, anger and frustration throughout, but as with so much of the music Sabra and Tabbal make — together or separately — there is hope here too.” – Arab Newshttps://www.arabnews.com/node/2619195/lifestyle
“Over a decade of collaboration, producer Fadi Tabbal and singer-songwriter Julia Sabra have sculpted a sound that is both melancholic and radiant: a haunting palette of reflection, collapse and resistance that keeps developing in their new album We live in sand.” – Le Guess Who?https://leguesswho.com/news/snakeskin-new-album
Ruptured co-founders Ziad Nawfal and Fadi Tabbal have crafted “The Noise We Carry,” a sprawling 50mn audio mixtape for Radio Elsewheres and the Elsewhere on Record exhibition at Art Windsor Essex.
The piece moves through Beirut itself: its traffic, collapsing infrastructure, seaside stillness, and the din of everyday life. Drones and layered textures meet archival radio fragments and selections from Lebanon’s underground post–civil war scene (including Scrambled Eggs and Munma), creating a patchwork of music, memory, and city noise. Interwoven are intimate voices and recordings from the 2019–2021 protests, tracing themes of displacement, forced departure, and creative survival.
Released on cassette, the recording loops continuously; with each pass, the magnetic tape degrades, turning medium into message and memory into material. Nothing lasts unchanged. Nothing returns exactly. And yet, the transmission persists.
Ruptured has long nurtured Lebanon’s experimental music, hosting concerts, producing albums, and preserving cultural memory amid collapse. “The Noise We Carry” carries that mission further: a transmission from Beirut, from the noise of daily survival, sent out to anyone listening.
LISTEN TO AN EXCERPT
The mixtape will be broadcast during the exhibition at Art Windsor Essex and on Radio Elsewheres’ website. Check broadcast times here.
Discover the exhibition here and explore Radio Elsewheres, the experimental sound platform founded by Velibor Božović, Steve Bates, and Claudia Zini, here.
A monthly selection of alternative, ambient and experimental music from Lebanon and the MENA region, selected by music promoter and label owner Ziad Nawfal – this broadcast features a guest mix by Lebanese musician SARY MOUSSA. Originally commissioned by Stegi Radio and produced by Onassis Stegi.
Sary Moussa is a Lebanese electronic musician, sound designer, producer, and engineer, deeply rooted in Beirut’s experimental and underground music scenes. Emerging in the late 2000s under the moniker radiokvm, he released his debut full-length album, Issrar, in 2014 on the Ruptured label. Performing under his own name, Moussa followed up with Imbalance in 2020 on Nicolas Jaar’s Other People imprint: an album shaped by childhood memories and regional soundscapes, blending Greek-Catholic chants, ambient noise, and the sonic imprint of southern Lebanon.
Moussa’s work is characterized by a fusion of drone-driven compositions and dance floor-ready electronica, emphasizing generative sound design and intricate sonic textures. His latest album Wind, Again was released by Other People in summer 2025. Beyond his solo projects, Moussa is an active collaborator across various artistic disciplines. He has composed music for theater, dance, film, and art installations.
TRACK LISTING:
Sary Moussa – Everywhere at once
Two or the Dragon – Dance Grooves for the Weary pt. 1
Cinna Peyghami – Sympathetic Fillings
Jerusalem in my heart – Wa Ta’atalat Loughat Al Kalam pt.1
Aho Ssan and Nicolas Jaar – Le Tremblement
Amina Hocine – Ātamōn I
Maurice Louca – Yara’ (Fire Flies)
Biliana Voutchkova and Phill Niblock – Biliana
Mana – Archipelaghi pt.2
Hania Rani – Dreamy
Charbel Haber, Nicolas Jaar and Sary Moussa – Crashing waves dance to the rhythm set by the broadcast journalist revealing the tragedies of the day pt.4
Asil Ensemble – Free group improvisation
Sary Moussa – White Dust
Fadi Tabbal – (Keep Beating)
Charbel Haber and Sary Moussa – Pity City (unreleased)
Ruptured Music 