Press Review // Snakeskin // We live in sand

November 1, 2025November 3, 2025Press ArchiveLeave a Comment

Acclaim for We live in sand, the latest album by Lebanese dreampop duo Snakeskin, released by Ruptured & Beacon Sound in October 2025:

“Snakeskin don’t so much shed layers from release to release, they harden their resolve, reinforcing their messaging into songs which are even more powerful and defining… [They] have created an extraordinary sound document which is so poignant in these troubled times and which will remain enlightening for much longer.” – John Parry, Backseat Mafia https://www.backseatmafia.com/album-review-snakeskin-we-live-in-sand-enlightening-intense-dream-pop-from-the-ever-impressive-beirut-duo/

“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-13 https://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

“We live in sand is an emotionally weighty album, though it’s also one in which the Lebanese duo manage to find beauty in the darkness.” – Shawn Reynaldo via substack https://firstfloor.substack.com/p/first-floor-285-money-matters

“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.” – SceneNoise https://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 News https://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

“The provisional nature of life in a country touched by war has infused all of Snakeskin’s music with an urgent beauty, made of dream-state laments, elegiac organ drones and the glitch and glitter of electronic pop beats.” – Dusted Magazine https://dustedmagazine.tumblr.com/post/796850309807882240/snakeskin-we-live-in-sand-rupturedbeacon

Featured in Will Hermes New Music + Old Music substack: https://newmusicoldmusic.substack.com/p/singing-the-unspoken

Utility Fog broadcast on FBi Radio by Peter Hollo: https://www.fbi.radio/programs/utility-fog/episodes/utility-fog-28th-september-2025

Listen/Order

Press Review // Postcards // Ripe

May 5, 2025May 6, 2025Press ArchiveLeave a Comment

Acclaim for Ripe, the latest album by Lebanese shoegaze trio Postcards, released by Ruptured in April 2025:

“On a foundation of what many would consider shoegaze and dream-pop, while the band has moved sonically with each release, the Postcards remit has been held together by the emotive storytelling of Sabra, and on Ripe it reaches a crescendo. Fraught with tension and the chaos that overshadows everyday life in Lebanon, Postcards frame it through song; and while you can certainly draw a line to this in previous works, on Ripe the band are at their all-encompassing best, reaching new levels.” – Simon Kirk, Sun-13 https://sun-13.com/2025/03/27/the-long-road-in-conversation-with-postcards-julia-sabra-pascal-semerdjian/#more-27934

“If previous Postcards albums were drenched in reverb-soaked melancholy, Ripe is what happens when that sadness curdles into fury. It is an album of contradictions: lush but raw, defiant yet wounded, intimate while also sounding like the collapse of a city.” – Chain DLK
https://www.chaindlk.com/reviews/12752

“Postcards channel this violence into their music, crafting dreamlike landscapes where guitars cut through the canvas like blades. Ripe is born from pain and uncertainty, an album of defiance that blends brutality and vulnerability, noise and melody. Like a lighthouse in the fog, it searches (in vain?) for a possible way out.” – Ondarock
https://www.ondarock.it/recensioni/2025-postcards-ripe.htm

“This is the soundtrack of burning youth, cigarettes over cityscapes, and late-night existential spirals. With the current situation in Gaza and Lebanon, the album takes on an even deeper resonance, its rawness mirroring the heartbreak, rage, and resilience of a region constantly on edge.” – Scene Noise
https://scenenoise.com/New-Music/Postcards-Ripe-Is-a-Love-Hate-Letter-to-Beirut

“A project of sharp contrasts and blinding sweetness, Postcards manage to sound both angelic and nervy, shifting seamlessly between storm-like intensity and moments of pure, hushed beauty (…) Ripe is a rare surprise — an album that sustains curiosity with substance, style, and flashes of emotional clarity across its ten tracks.” – Sodapop
https://www.sodapop.it/phnx/postcards-ripe-ruptured-t3-2025/

“A darker, more punk-infused take on shoegaze.” – CDM
https://cdm.link/postcards-from-lebanon-telling-the-worlds-story/

“Until now, the band was known for its mesmerizing blend of dreampop and shoegaze, carried by Julia Sabra’s airy voice floating over layers of synths. But with *Ripe*, the guitars storm into the space with fury. The trio’s sound becomes sharper, more cutting. The drums gallop, Marwan Tohme’s bass rumbles, and from this turmoil emerges a refrain that haunts the album’s opening track, ‘I Stand Corrected,’ echoing like a mantra throughout the record: ‘Destroy, rebuild, you know the drill.” – Djolo Cultures d’Afrique https://djolo.net/ripe-5eme-album-postcards-ne-dans-colere/

“A recent batch of new material from the Beirut label Ruptured just arrived at the shop. And though it is a challenge to single out just one release, my heart keeps returning to the fifth album from shoegaze trio Postcards. Ripe fills each gushing moment of this album with devastating imagery of smoldering buildings, poisoned blood, and barren shorelines. A challenging, shattering, necessary listen.” – Robert Ham, For The Record https://www.wweek.com/music/2025/04/22/for-the-record/

“On previous releases, we heard echoes of various influences, but on Ripe, the band’s own voice comes through more clearly—the album’s title couldn’t have been better chosen. Ripe is a beautifully balanced record with a sound that leaves a lasting impression. Singer/guitarist Julia Sabra soothes at times with her warm, gentle voice, but she can also unleash its full power, perfectly complementing the driving rhythm section of drummer Pascal Semerdjian and bassist/guitarist Marwan Tohme.” – Luminous Dash https://luminousdash.be/reviews/postcards-ripe-ruptured-t3-records/#google_vignette

Adventures in Sound & Music x Resonance FM broadcast by Shane Woolman for The Wire Magazine: https://shanewoolman.uk/ana-lua-caiano-guest-mix/

Utility Fog broadcast on FBi Radio by Peter Hollo: https://www.fbi.radio/programs/utility-fog/episodes/utility-fog-16th-march-2025

Featured in Premonition broadcast: https://www.premo.fr/transmission/Deux-Cent-Trente-Septieme-Tentative/237

Listen/Order

Press Review // Fadi Tabbal // I recognize you from my sketches

February 14, 2025May 5, 2025Press ArchiveLeave a Comment

Acclaim for Fadi Tabbal’s I recognize you from my sketches, released by Ruptured in January 2025:

“Subsuming the sounds of others into his own, not in his typical bilateral mode of collaboration but through sampling, Tabbal seems to grapple with the binary between community and self. “I am all that is left,” he announces in the closing track. As the tidal synth pads wash over and retreat into tape hiss, the trace of the medium is the last to go. But this solitude is not an abandonment; empty tape always carries the potential to hold space for sounds yet unheard.” – James Gui, Pitchfork 7.5
https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/fadi-tabbal-i-recognize-you-from-my-sketches/

“10 tracks of somber ambient and rose-tinted noise—at times plaintive, at times anguished. I hear bits of Tim Hecker in the smoldering distortion crackling at the edges of his synths and guitars, and a Kranky-esque sensibility in general—in the mournful desert landscaping of “(keep pumping),” say, or the striated textures of “When we swam together,” translucent as quartz. Citing a lifetime of personal struggles—mental-health issues, loneliness, missed opportunities, the violence of Beirut itself—Tabbal calls the record “a breakup album between who we want to be and who we turned out to be.” That sounds like a bleak assessment, but by the end, his tough-love meditation yields something that sounds a lot like hope.” – Philip Sherburne, Futurism Restated
https://futurismrestated.substack.com/p/futurism-restated

“A lot seems to happen here in semi-secret detail, which is not congruent with the more obvious, superficial events and at the same time interacts with them in an interesting way. At points like this one has to mention Tabbal’s musician friends – Julia Sabra, Charbel Haber, Anthony Sahyoun, et al: people who have repeatedly played an important role in the artist’s life and work and whose samples and quotations beneath the surface also shape the sound of this album, which fits well with the personal theme, because every biography, every personal memory would not be what it is without the influence of others. The semi-transparency of the sounds creates a tension that is never fully resolved and also leaves open the question of whether absence really is the only thing that protects life.” – Uwe Schneider, African Paper
http://africanpaper.com/2025/02/08/

“Tabbal continues his long-standing conversation between self and community, exploring the ways in which personal and collective identities intersect through music.” – Cairo Scene
https://cairoscene.com/Noise/

“This latest release, with the lovely title, I recognize you from my sketches, sees Tabbal develop his core sound with even more emotional depth and explores the spaces between memory, identity and personal growth.” – Norman Records UK
https://www.normanrecords.com/records/

Adventures in Sound & Music x Resonance FM broadcast by Shane Woolman for The Wire Magazine (with a guest mix by Fadi Tabbal):
https://www.thewire.co.uk/audio/fadi-tabbal-guest-mix

Pacific Notions x KEXP broadcast by Alex Ruder:
https://www.kexp.org/shows/pacific-notions/

Featured in Battiti’s broadcast “How We Roll” for RAI3:
https://www.raiplaysound.it/audio/2025/02/

Featured in Battiti’s broadcast “Rime Ignoranti” for RAI3:
https://www.raiplaysound.it/audio/2025/02/

Listen/Order

Press Review // Chamoun, Sahyoun, Atoui // Ghadr

February 14, 2025May 5, 2025Press ArchiveLeave a Comment

Acclaim for Sandy Chamoun, Anthony Sahyoun and Jad Atoui’s Ghadr, released by Ruptured in November 2024:

“On this record, scene stalwarts Anthony Sahyoun and Sandy Chamoun (SANAM) join forces with electroacoustic artist Jad Atoui in a reckoning with tradition that’s fueled by stuttering sub bass, searing guitar textures, and layers of melancholy vocals. Chamoun’s ghostly rendition of “Tahal Layl”—a Bedouin folk song—floats atop drones that expand into a blistering modular onslaught; “Al Moulatham,” on the other hand, interpolates reflections by Yousef al-Domouky on the genocide in Gaza over glitchy, Tim Hecker-esque ambient swells. Ghadr exhorts us to listen to both violence and repair, mobilizing tradition to face an uncertain future.” – James Gui, Ley Lines column, Bandcamp
https://daily.bandcamp.com/ley-lines/ley-lines-november-2024

Listen/Order

Press Review // Julia Sabra // Natural History Museum

January 1, 2025May 5, 2025Press ArchiveLeave a Comment

Acclaim for Julia Sabra’s Natural History Museum, released by Ruptured in November 2024:

“I loved Julia Sabra’s Natural History Museum—it was released at the end of the year and is quietly devastating. Her lyricism and sensitivity in timbre and harmony is akin for me to the great Linda Perhacs. The songs are intimate and infinite feeling at the same time—I love the raw and soft poetic settings of love and death. [Her] ruminations on the horrors of the war on Gaza, from the perspective of a Lebanese musician based in Beirut, are haunting. In particular, the ghostly organ and synth on the last track on the record, “Minor Detail”, evoke to me the frightening solemnity of death, and a feeling that the ground from underneath has been lifted and displaced.” – Julia Holter, The Fader Artist Picks 2024
https://www.thefader.com/2024/12/20/best-album-songs-2024-artist-picks

Listen/Order

Press Review // Yara Asmar // Stuttering Music

December 15, 2024May 5, 2025Press ArchiveLeave a Comment

Acclaim for Yara Asmar’s Stuttering Music, released by Ruptured in November 2024:

“Stuttering Music is one of unfolding doubles, of sounds two times incomplete, of daydreaming dissociation without an anchoring center. It is the wonder of memory, the humorous poetry of being both somewhere and elsewhere, the context collapse of broken sequences – musical, historical, vital. Is a remembrance a duplicitous invention? As Asmar extends the sounds of the accordion like wings, she draws our attention to the falling feathers, each a unity, and yet also a fragment. The levity of their form betrays profound connections with everything around them, a swirl of the kaleidoscope, every singular strand of self inherently an other. It is sad, and yet also funny, how memory fools us into thinking like one. Which is why a Stuttering Music is also always beautiful, first as presence, then as absence.” – David M. Flores, A Closer Listen Top 10 Drone Albums of 2024
https://acloserlisten.com/2024/12/14/acl-2024-top-ten-drone/

Listen/Order

Press Review // Shatr Collective // Poppies in October

October 9, 2024November 18, 2024Press ArchiveLeave a Comment

Acclaim for Shatr Collective’s album Poppies in October, released by Ruptured in August 2024 (digital):

“What does poetry tell us in the time of catastrophe? Intertwining words and music with the sounds of colonial violence in Palestine and Lebanon, Poppies in October is the first recorded project from Lebanon’s Shatr collective, one that musically modulates “truth to power” while grounding experimental musical production with sound clips and media sources that sonically encapsulate our times.” – Christina Hazboun, Bandcamp, September 2024
https://daily.bandcamp.com/lists/i-found-it-on-bandcamp-friday-september-2024

“A challenging, moving album of poetry and modular synthesis from SHATR Collective. These pieces are visceral responses to the genocide in Gaza, indeed referencing the killing of Palestinian poets – Sahyoun’s “Salim” is about Salim Al Naffar. The emotion in the spoken words is palpable, and along with the stark electronics it can be difficult listening – as it probably should be.” – Peter Hollo, Utility Fog broadcast (FBi Radio), August 2024
https://utilityfog.radio/archives/2024/08/

“Beirut-based poetry group Shatr Collective, taking their name from the Arabic term for a hemistich or half-line in a verse, meditates on the power and limitations of literature as witness on Poppies in October. With English and Arabic poetry by Theresa Sahyoun and Nadine Makarem set to otherworldly, desolate synths by Sarah Huneidi, Poppies in October is a raw reflection on the unlikely thriving of human spirit and resistance in the midst of violent erasure. “No settler was ever able to kill a poem/ Which is where Refaat now lives,” recites Sahyoun on her paean to the eponymous Palestinian poet and academic Refaat Alareer, targeted and killed in an Israeli airstrike in December. Concluding with the hope inspired by Alareer’s life and legacy, Huneidi’s synths turn warm, even optimistic.” – James Gui, Ley Lines column, Bandcamp, September 2024
https://daily.bandcamp.com/ley-lines/ley-lines-august-2024

Featured in The Attic’s Staff Picks of August 2024:
https://theatticmag.com/news/2466/staff-picks-_-august-2024.html

“Go support these Lebanese releases on Bandcamp”, by Peter Kirn (CDM), September 2024:
https://cdm.link/lebanese-releases-on-bandcamp/

Listen/Order

Press Review // Moose Terrific [Tamara Filyavich, Sam Shalabi] // Nude Beginnings

October 9, 2024November 18, 2024Press ArchiveLeave a Comment

Acclaim for Moose Terrific’s album Nude Beginnings, released by Ruptured in July 2024 (cassette/digital):

“Low-key electronic vignettes, emphasising fun and hopefulness over rage and sorrow.” – Peter Hollo, Utility Fog broadcast (FBi Radio), July 2024
https://utilityfog.radio/archives/2024/07/

“The opening title track has cascading melodies which constantly evade predictability. ‘Fort Da’ sounds like it could soundtrack a Sega game from the 1990s. ‘Jefferson Airport’ reminds me of Shalabi’s Eid album, but transposed from oud to electronics. It’s a mood which runs into closer ‘Bloomsday’, a droning synth and shuffling beat leading to a space somewhere between Trans-Europe Express-era Kraftwerk and Sanam. It’s music which revels in crossovers and new connections.” – Daryl Worthington, The Quietus, September 2024
https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/cassettes/spools-out-cassette-reviews-for-september-by-daryl-worthington/

Featured in The Attic’s Staff Picks of July 2024:
https://theatticmag.com/news/2464/staff-picks-_-july-2024.html

Listen/Order

Press Review // Marmalsana [Burkhard Beins, Tony Elieh, Maurice Louca] // Marmalsana

October 9, 2024November 18, 2024Press ArchiveLeave a Comment

Acclaim for Marmalsana’s album Marmalsana, released by Ruptured in July 2024 (cassette/digital):

“A singularly idiomatic music worth attending to.” – Peter Hollo, Utility Fog broadcast (FBi Radio), July 2024
https://utilityfog.radio/archives/2024/07/

“The tracks are plucked, rattled and thrummed exercises in nuanced rhythmic and textural exploration. The juxtapositions and tensions between melodic and non-idiomatic are entrancing, peaking on ‘Alveno’, when Louca plays out a jaunty, almost folky melody on the quarter tone guitar which the other two make a throbbing, creaking soundscape around. The whole album arcs like a storm rising and falling, with all the shifting pressure and unpredictable eddies of movement and sound that suggests.” – Daryl Worthington, The Quietus, September 2024
https://thequietus.com/quietus-reviews/cassettes/spools-out-cassette-reviews-for-september-by-daryl-worthington/

“It’s a wonderful album that suggests how those reduced materials can be shepherded into something truly dynamic and exciting, all of it fueled by an obvious rapport and shared vision. Maurice Louca and Tony Elieh work together in multiple projects, including the great Arabic rock band Karkana, while Burkhard Beins and Elieh also have a duo called Zone Null, so the overlapping interests are nothing new. Still, intersecting ideas don’t ever guarantee something this cohesive and absorbing.” – Peter Margasak, Nowhere Street substack, September 2024
https://petermargasak.substack.com/p/on-the-road-again

Featured in The Attic’s Staff Picks of July 2024:
https://theatticmag.com/news/2464/staff-picks-_-july-2024.html

Listen/Order

Press Review // Youmna Saba // Wishah

December 23, 2023October 8, 2024Press ArchiveLeave a Comment

Acclaim for Youmna Saba’s album Wishah, released by Touch UK In October 2023 (CD/digital) and by Ruptured in December 2023 (vinyl/digital).

“Structured into five discernible stages, Wishah guides us through a gradual process of revelation, deconstructing memories and barriers that have built up through the ages. Saba carefully peels back those layers, finding an empty shell at the center, the place where home once existed. Each word stings. Caustic, atmospheric drones hollow out the last remnants, leaving our thoughts trailing into the endless night. A stunning album.” – Brad Rose, Foxy Digitalis
https://foxydigitalis.zone/2023/12/13/the-capsule-garden-vol-2-42-december-13-2023/

“Nestled 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.” – Nasri N. Sayegh, L’Orient-le-Jour
https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1350564/youmna-saba-electronise-son-oud.html

“The five-song composition feels like going in circles on the edge of an epiphany; a spiral in synthesized oud.” – Layla Raik, SceneNoise
https://scenenoise.com/New-Music/Youmna-Saba-s-Wishah-is-an-Obscure-Tapestry-of-Oud-Soundscapes

Also included in Scene Noise’s Best Albums of 2023 (Middle East & North Africa):
https://scenenoise.com/Reviews/Best-Albums-Of-2023-Middle-East-North-Africa

“Lebanese musician, composer and musicologist Youmna Saba positions her voice at the center of her latest solo album (…) Very strong material indeed.” – Boomkat
https://boomkat.com/products/wishah

“A remarkable new work from Beirut’s Youmna Saba, now based in Paris. Saba is an accomplished oud player (…) On Wishah وِشاح 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.” – Peter Hollo, Utility Fog (FBi Radio)
https://www.frogworth.com/utilityfog/archives/2023/10/08/playlist-08-10-23/

“Saba s’attaque au logiciel historique du oud en tant qu’instrument : (elle) utilise ce qui est souvent perçu comme une série de défauts pour le transformer en instrument électro-acoustique, en jouant notamment sur des dispositifs de larsen maîtrisé, comme lorsqu’elle a placé le oud face à 6 voix et travaillé sur leurs résonances dans l’instrument. À le faire sonner ainsi, elle s’affranchit de la vision essentialiste s’étant largement diffusée ces cinquante dernières années en Europe ; un oud justement dénué de bruits, suspendu dans une logique de pureté proche de la musique baroque, où chaque note résonne et doit rencontrer le silence du public.” – Musique Journal
https://musique-journal.fr/2023/10/19/youmna-saba-a-plus-dune-corde-a-son-oud/