Ziad Nawfal’s monthly mix for Movement Radio in Athens, featuring music from Lebanon, Indonesia and Germany. This mix was commissioned and produced by Onassis Cultural Center, and presented for the first time in the frame of MOVEMENT RADIO.
1. Kinematik – Al Jadi (Capricorn) [LB] 2. Senyawa – Alkisah I [ID] 3. TEDTEDTED – Cama [LB] 4. NP [Anthony Sahyoun & Jad Atoui] – Coins with Memory [LB] 5. Liliane Chlela & Ziad Moukarzel – Dahr el Baydar [LB] 6. Two or The Dragon – Dance Grooves for The Weary (Part 1) [LB] 7. Calamita – The Industry [LB/IT] 8. Sharif Sehnaoui & Tony Elieh – Woe to Him [LB] 9. Stellar Banger [Giw/Hout/Kobeissy/Turnbull] – Put Your Medicine In Your Banana Bag [LB/DE]
Ziad Nawfal’s monthly mix for Radio Ma3azef in Tunis:
1. Stellar Banger – Intro PREMIERE
2. Two or The Dragon – Dance Grooves for The Weary [excerpt] PREMIERE
3. Sharif Sehnaoui & Tony Elieh – Woe to Him [excerpt]
4. Liliane Chlela & Ziad Moukarzel – Dahr el Baydar [excerpt]
5. Anthony Sahyoun & Jad Atoui – Walls Don’t Blink [excerpt]
6. Fadi Tabbal & Julia Sabra – Roots
7. Elyse Tabet & Jawad Nawfal – Courbe Lisse
8. Charbel Haber & Sary Moussa – And Yet Another Romance on A Sinking Ship [excerpt]
9. Aya Metwalli & Nadia Daou – Saturnus [excerpt]
TWO OR THE DRAGON Two or the Dragon is the electro-acoustic duo of Lebanese musicians Abed Kobeissy and Ali Hout. The project was initiated in 2014, when the two players were asked to compose scores for contemporary dance and theater performances. The duo’s unapologetic approach to traditional Arabic music hints at deconstruction, dance grooves, industry, satire and a deniable melancholy, in a manner reminiscent of early recordings by Einsturzende Neubauten, Laibach or Throbbbing Gristle.
Hout and Kobeissy approach Beirut’s industrial vistas both as a local aesthetic and a main element of their work: the unique sound of processed buzuq (Levantine long-necked lute) and percussion, combined with the two musicians’ rich background in traditional Arabic music, takes the sonic, visual and pseudo-political day-to-day that is Beirut and reflects it onto a hyper-realistic soundscape.
Rather than a contemporary rendering of traditional Arabic music, Two or The Dragon’s music is saturated with their city’s aural components. The restless din of Beirut plays a major role in shaping the duo’s aesthetic; from the drilling of ever-expanding construction sites, the cacophony of car horns in unpredictable traffic, the drone of randomly juxtaposed electricity generators powering an entire city, and the thousands of wandering tankers pumping water into apartment blocks. Colorful fields of raw noise evolve into soothing agents of amnesia, in an absurdly elongated post-war period. “DANCE GROOVES FOR THE WEARY” marks a departure from Two or The Dragon’s usual trademarks. The prevailing attitude here is one of sobriety and caution, undoubtedly as a result of the events that started dismantling the fabric of Lebanese society, from October 2019 to the present day.
Kobeissy’s solo piece, on which this EP is based, was composed in the Fall of 2020, following THE most violent summer in Lebanon’s history. As “DANCE GROOVES FOR THE WEARY” progresses, the initial sense of sobriety and caution seems to have run its course. The physical detonation of the drum machine – an agent provocateur of sorts – paves the way for an emotionally charged finale, with faint traces of a Bizet melody and a grinding, distorted daf.
At the heart of this new work is a desire to provide solace for the megalomaniac, the tired, the frightened, the bored, and the hopeful alike. A slap in the face of Lebanon’s ongoing, undeterred collective amnesia.
STELLAR BANGER
Stellar Banger is an electro-acoustic quartet composed of Lebanese musicians Ali Hout and Abed Kobeissy and German musicians Pablo Giw and Joss Turnbull.
The roots of this unique collaboration were laid down during the 2019 iteration of Irtijal Festival in Beirut, when the four men played together for the first time following their respective festival sets. The next year, right before the eruption of the Coronavirus pandemic, they set about working on a set of concrete recordings, from their homes in Beirut, Berlin, Köln and Turin. The resulting, freeform pieces were reworked, stretched and recomposed under varying states of lockdown, over the course of six months and 28 highly kinetic Zoom meetings.
The approach behind Stellar Banger is one of complete musical freedom, away from pre-assigned functions of instrumental / cultural roles, oblivious to the borders separating acoustic and digital media. At the heart of the quartet’s creative process is the notion of instant composing; improvisation with an experimental mindset, drum machines and electronic beats used in an open and intuitive manner, creating an identifiable sonic identity and structure.
Influenced by the absurd realities of a world overridden by COVID-19, far-right politics and bloody popular uprisings, the music might seem chaotic at first; but hidden within a multi-matrix of patterns, rhythms and colors, an elusive yet imposing structure begins to emerge, a pulsating musical bed composed of grainy, poly-layered pink-noise eruptions.
A case in point would be lead track “Data Is,” a bewildering example of musical defragmentation, overlaying sample shreds, stutters and tremolo patterns, unraveling as a sonic reminder of pre-existing musical idioms. The track inexorably builds up and climaxes into a giant cluster of pixels and dots; an audiophiliac prophecy of digitization, set to ghostlike incantations of astronomical objects and cosmic junk data.
Stellar Banger survived COVID-19’s reign of terror and the tyranny of border controls thanks to instant voice messages. In this EP release, messages act as both musical tools and narrative elements. They document the difficulties undergone by band members traveling and attempting to meet under lockdown. Aural, often nonsensical snapshots of arguments at airports, border controls, in quarantine; a binary, intercontinental ballistic messenger of friendship, a conveyor of hope through music. An apt representation of today’s digital world.
Mixed by Pablo Giw. Mastered by Rashad Becker at Clunk, Berlin. Artwork by Murtey.
Ruptured Music 