MARMALSANA is a Berlin-based trio that brings together Burkhard Beins on percussion, Tony Elieh on acoustic bass guitar, and Maurice Louca on (acoustic quarter-tone guitar. An outstanding melding of free improv and experimental jazz, if you will.
Based in Berlin and active in the free improv and experimental scenes of the city, Beins, Elieh, and Louca have spent the last decade or so developing various projects with local and international musicians.
Marmalsana is their first collaboration, one for which they decided to forego amplification and rely on acoustic instruments only, employing extended techniques and objects to produce soundscapes of drones, textures, melodies, and polyrhythms.
The album fuses the three musicians’ backgrounds, styles, and influences: they succeed in merging their individual contributions into a unified whole, moving between distinct placements of sound and moments beyond instrumental recognizability. Their journey traverses between Beirut, Berlin, and Cairo, creating in the process a nomadic musical language.
The music on Marmalsana was composed, performed and produced in Berlin in December 2023. Mixed by Burkhard Beins, mastered by Werner Dafeldecker.
Cover photography by Tony Elieh, design by Maya Chami.
The album is currently streaming on all digital platforms. It is also available as a limited edition of 60 cassettes, shipping exclusively from Rupturedโs Bandcamp page.
Following the release of her critically-acclaimed debut LP Marjaa: The Battle of the Hotelsย in March 2023, Lebanese artist Mayssa Jallad returns with a set of EU/UK tour dates (including shows in London, Berlin and Brussels), as well as a stunning new video directed by Lebanese filmmaker Ely Dagher.
You can watch the video below and read Mayssa’s notes on the historical/geopolitical context.
Apr 21 – Donau Festival, Krems, AT – tickets Apr 24 – Hotel Olympik, Prague, CZย Apr 26 – Sharpe Festival, Bratislava, SK – tickets Apr 27 – Silent Green, Berlin, DE – tickets May 1 – UCL, London, UK (workshop) May 2 – Folklore Hoxton, London, UK – tickets May 3 – Les Aralunaires, Arlon, BE – tickets May 4 – Les Nuits Botanique, Brussels, BE – tickets
WATCH the video for “Holiday Inn (January to March)”
Directed by Ely Dagher, the video for Mayssa’s album track “Holiday Inn (January to March)” is a visually stunning work exploring the album’s theme of memory and decay. Archival images of a war-torn Beirut early in Lebanon’s Civil War are digitally processed into a series of fractured 3D models, through which we are slowly navigated. The results are eerily haunting, and resonate powerfully with current events.
According to Dagher, “I was looking for a visual language that could express the fragility and complexity of an elusive and broken memory – something fragmented and incomplete. Archive footage from the battles were given a new life and perspective to craft a collage that blends details from the vivid realism of the battles with the fluid capacity of memory. Bodies, buildings, feelings and violence fragmented.”
Mayssa writes that “Holiday Inn is an immense modernist high rise hotel with a revolving rooftop restaurant, overlooking the Mediterranean… It was inaugurated in 1974, a few months before the beginning of the battle of the hotels, in which it was a main protagonist, first invaded by the blues (right wing nationalists) and then the reds (left wing pro Palestinians). For 5 months, with 5 star hotel amenities, blue gunmen terrorized and controlled the city.ย During this period, two massacres occurred: on January 18, in Karantina, the blues killed 1,500 Muslims and Palestinians. On January 20th, in Damour, the reds killed 1,500 Christians. Spiraling into endless violence and retaliation.
The phenomenon of high rises in Beirut, these weapons of war that created the perfect conditions for urban warfare, is an often overlooked effect of the 1948 Nakba, when Israeli Occupying Forces expelled Palestinians and destabilized the Arab region. Wealthy Palestinians, Syrians and Iraqis invested their money in Lebanon to avoid the brunt of political and economic crises in their home countries. In parallel, Gulf countries that had struck oil around that period, also started investing in Beirut . A โGolden Eraโ of grandiose projects for the 1% was born, luxury hotels, nightclubs, towers, ignoring the ‘belt of misery’ being formed around the capital. A luxury so vulnerable, so easily destabilized that it was invaded 6 months after the civil war broke out, again, as an effect of the Nakba and the political division since the Palestinian Liberation Organization took post in Lebanon.
Today, these buildings exist as relics of the past, among new skyscrapers that threaten to repeat the same history over and over again. Are we remembering, or are we just reliving the past? We long to forget, and end up falling into the same traps of violence and false prosperity, over and over again.”
In February 2024, we released two new albums by Lebanese electronic producer Jawad Nawfal aka Munma.
TRANSIENT ORGANis the first physical solo release by Jawad Nawfal since 2016โs landmark full-length Three Voices.
The music on the album was composed by Nawfal between November 2021 and September 2023, in bouts of fractured creativity punctuated by frequent power cuts in his native city of Beirut. Transient Organ features the voice of regular Munma collaborator Caroline Tabet, whose evocative spoken word poetry appears on two tracks. Tabet also provided the drawing that graces the cover of the album.
Mastered by Cedrik Fermont in Berlin, designed by Maya Chami in Beirut.
Transient Organ is available as a digital album and limited release cassette of 40 copies, printed and duplicated in Montreal, Canada.
Listen/Order:ย rupturedthelabel.bandcamp.com/album/transient-organMODERN INDIVIDUAL is the first recorded collaboration between Jawad Nawfal and Lebanese experimental musicians Jad Atoui (NP, Kinematik Ensemble) and Sharif Sehnaoui (โAโ Trio, Calamita).
The music on this album was composed and performed by Atoui, Nawfal and Sehnaoui in Beirut, between January and August 2023.
Mastered by Cedrik Fermont in Berlin, designed by Maya Chami in Beirut.
Modern Individual is available as a digital album and limited release cassette of 40 copies, printed and duplicated in Montreal, Canada.
Listen/Order:ย rupturedthelabel.bandcamp.com/album/modern-individual
actยทartยทmgt, Heavy Trip & Ruptured present: Nadah El Shazly & Radwan Ghazi Moumneh | Live at Hotel2Tango
Nadah El Shazly and Radwan Ghazi Moumneh present their duo collaboration after a week-long composition residency, in the intimate setting of Hotel2Tango recording studio in Montreal.
Sunday 25 February 2024, 8pm (doors)
Hotel2Tango recording studio, Tiohtia:ke | Montrรฉal.
This is a very limited seating event. No sales at the door. BYOB
This is happening in your city on Friday 12 January.
The exquisite Youmna Saba will present her new album “Wishah”, co-released in late 2023 by Touch [UK] and Ruptured [Lebanon], in a live showcase taking place at Souffle Continu music store. Starting 6.30pm.
There will be copies of the album available to purchase in both vinyl and CD format.
Facebook event HERE.
Releasing December 15th, 2023 on Ruptured Records: Although these are terrible times we are living in, it pleases us to finally announce the vinyl release of โWISHAHโ, by Lebanese musician, composer and musicologist Youmna Saba.
“Wishah” (meaning veil in Arabic) is a composition for voice, oud and electronics, composed and performed between 2021 and 2022.ย
Following her previous solo works “Njoum” (2014) and “Arbโeen” (2017), this album marks a significant turning point in Saba’s journey. Created after leaving Beirut and settling in Paris, “Wishah” reveals a profound shift in her musical expression, informed by rigorous research in the sonic properties of sung Arabic phonemes and their role in shaping synthesized electronic sounds.
The composition is organized into five distinct stages, each contributing to a process of gradual revelation. As the tracks unfold, they strip away layers of constructed emotions and perceptions that have been intricately woven over time, to expose a space that no longer exists. โWishahโ is in many ways a farewell to home.
Youmna Saba is a musician, composer and musicologist. Her current research focuses on instrument and space resonances in different sonic and musical contexts. With four albums to date, she has collaborated with artists from different countries and backgrounds, further enriching her repertoire and expanding her reach. These include Kamilya Jubran, Floy Krouchi, Mike Cooper and the Neue Vocalsolisten ensemble, among others. She is the laureate of the first sound residency at Quai Branly Museum, Paris (2022-2023) with her research project and installation โLa Rรฉserve des Non-Ditsโ, now on view at the museum; and a laureate of the music residency program at the Citรฉ Internationale des Arts, Paris (2020-2021).
โWishahโ was first released by UK label Touch back in October 2023, as a CD and digital album. Ruptured will release the vinyl version in December 2023.
โNestled in the interval between the urgency of speaking, and that of remaining silent or speaking out of turn, Youmna Saba engages in a relentless yet passionate and loving heart-to-heart with her instrument.โ โ Nasri Sayegh, LโOrient le Jour
“A remarkable new work from Beirut’s Youmna Saba, now based in Paris. Saba is an accomplished oud player, found on many other artists’ releases (such as Oiseaux-Tempรชte). On Wishah ูโูโุดโุงโุญ her oud’s sound is technologically extended, to amplify every string squeak and body tap, and further integrated with sympathetic electronics. The works range from abstract processed sound to delicate oud fingerpicking, and most tracks patiently reach a place where Saba brings in her emotive vocals. It’s an immersive, moving listening experience.” โ Peter Hollo, Utility Fog (FBi Radio)
Wishah Written and performed by Youmna Saba. Recorded and mixed by Fadi Tabbal at Tunefork Studios, Beirut. Produced by Youmna Saba and Fadi Tabbal. Mastered by Stephan Mathieu.
Vinyl version produced by Ruptured in Montrรฉal, Canada in Fall 2023. Limited edition of 200 copies pressed at Microforum, Toronto. Design and photography by Jon Wozencroft (courtesy of Touch UK).
Starts shipping on December 15, 2023. Listen/Preorder here
Mayssa Jallad will play a short European tour in November 2023, in support of her latest album Marjaa: The Battle of the Hotels.
Confirmed performances include Oslo World Festival in Oslo, Norway and Le Guess Who? Festival in Utrecht, The Netherlands. She will be accompanied by Julia Sabra (Snakeskin, Postcards) and Pascal Semerdjian (Postcards, Sanam).
Releasing November 3rd, 2023 โ a joint release by Ruptured and Six of Swords
Lebanese singer/songwriter Mayssa Jallad’s first solo album. A poetic reflection on Beirut’s War of the Hotels, one of the bloodiest events of Lebanon’s Civil War.
The vinyl edition of โMarjaa: The Battle of the Hotelsโ is co-released by Beirut-based label Ruptured and UK newcomer Six of Swords. It is pressed in a limited edition of 300 copies, with a limited D2C edition containing download coupon and a full-colour, double-sided 34 x 68cm art print on 150gsm wood-free paper with map, 3D diagrams and timeline depicting the historical events of the battle.ย ย
Mayssa will play a short European tour in November, including performances at Oslo World in Sweden and Le Guess Who? in The Netherlands.ย
“In the end, the album, like the city on which it is based, feels like an infinite loop of history, relayed through the brave yet saintly voice of an artist who has taken the task of documenting the past through music.” – Christina Hazboun, Bandcamp daily.bandcamp.com/features/mayssa-jallad-marjaa-battle-of-the-hotels-interviewย ย
โItโs an album with everything; vital history, experimental melodicism, inventive structures, mountains of emotion, and Jalladโs stunning voice. There is so much to learn, so much to hear.โ – Brad Rose, Foxy Digitalis
“In an overwhelmingly creative and critical act, Mayssa Jallad turns the destruction of the Lebanese Civil War into a stunning, two-sided album driven by poetic songwriting mixed with historical narration, lush strings and synths, gentle drones, and her incredible vocal prowess.” – Maha El-Nabawy, SceneNoise
Mhamad Safa is a musician, architect and researcher, based between London and Beirut. Safaโs work focuses on multi-scalar spatial conditions and their sonic make-ups. He conveys these auditory inquiries by assembling sound design, micro-sampling, algorithmic sound technology, synthesis, psychoacoustics, field recordings, and their graphic interpretations. His debut album The Subtleties of Elevated Things was released in 2018 by Amsterdam-based label Modular Mind, and second album Ibtihalat was released in 2022 by UIQ in the UK. Besides composing music for films and sound installations, he was part of multiple publications and music compilations. Safa had shown individual and collaborative artwork and performances at Goethe Institute in Beirut, Arab Center for Architecture, Ashkal Alwan in Beirut, the Institute for Contemporary Art in London, the Centre for Research Architecture in London, the Sharjah Architecture Triennial, Bergen Assembly in Norway, The Showroom in London, Cafรฉ Oto in London among others.
The music on Hometown was produced for the video installation of the same title by Dutch collective Metahaven, shot between Beirut and Kyiv in 2017. The film conjures notions of land, technology, and fiction through an endlessly morphing reality of living conditions. Seen through the lens of two protagonists, Hometown depicts their uncertain and distorted relationship to geographic affinities, and the intimate memories embedded within the landscape. The original score emerged out of a continuous exchange of images, scripts, and poetry between Safa and Metahaven, evolving into an overall sonic narrative. The composition highlights the protagonistsโ struggle to access memory while situating it within their spatial and networked conditions. Evolving from processed soundscapes, stretched micro-samples and feedbacks, this assemblage weaves together a sense of forgetting with tacit spatial knowledge. Percussive and rhythmic structures drew from patterns inherent to computational systems and technologies of visibility, omnipresent in the film.
Music composed and produced by Mhamad Safa in Beirut in 2017-2018. Mixed by Mhamad Safa, except for tracks 5 and 8 mixed by Jad Atoui. Mastered by Cedrik Fermont at Syrphe, Berlin.
Available as a digital album and limited cassette with download code.
actยทartยทmgt, Heavy Trip & Ruptured present: Radwan Ghazi Moumneh and Alex Zhang Hungtai | Hotel2Tango
Join us on Sunday, the 13th of August for an intimate showing of a new performance that Alex Zhang Hungtai and Radwan Ghazi Moumneh have been working on.
Opening the evening will be Vรฉro Marengรจre.
Place: Hotel2Tango recording studio, Tiohtia:ke | Montrรฉal.
Time 20:00.
This is a very limited seating event. No sales at the door.
Advance tickets can be purchased HERE.
Ruptured Music 