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 composer and musician CHARBEL HABER. Originally commissioned by Stegi Radio and produced by Onassis Stegi.
Charbel Haber is a Lebanese musician, composer, and artist working across music, film, and performance. A central figure in Lebanon’s experimental scene since the late 1990s, he co-founded Scrambled Eggs, a key group in Beirut’s independent music landscape. His work spans electroacoustic composition and guitar-based forms, alongside long-running collaborations with Fadi Tabbal. Based between Beirut and Paris, Haber’s practice engages memory and history through sound.
Acclaim for May a soft sun bless your sky while you wait for the inevitable, the latest album by Lebanese experimental musician Charbel Haber, released by Ruptured in April 2026.
“So, it’s a journey. In music and stories, those usually go from darkness to light, or from and then back to home. As the album proceeds through tracks like “One last stroll in the garden of light,” it becomes a journey without a map—a quest for a place that may be safe and, if not that, then still; and if not that, then maybe a place where one can take a breath and think clearly.” – George Grella, Bandcamp ALBUM OF THE DAYhttps://charbelhaber.bandcamp.com/album/may-a-soft-sun-bless-your-sky-while-you-wait-for-the-inevitable
“An utterly gorgeous minimalist ambient/classical/record from this Lebanese producer is as gentle and moving as a sunrise.” – Bandcamp New & Notable, 24 Apr. 2026
“At times, Haber’s music evokes the cinematic post-rock of bands like Sigur Rós and Explosions in the Sky, but his latest full-length is neither as chilly as the former nor as grandiose as the latter. May a soft sun bless your sky while you wait for the inevitable may cast its gaze toward the heavens, but with its inherent warmth, not to mention the softly crackling static that is present pretty much throughout the record, it’s an effort that crucially still feels very human.” – Shawn Reynaldo via Substack https://firstfloor.substack.com/p/charbel-haber-may-a-soft-sun-bless
“The album reveals itself as a series of inner reflections, with the listener entering mid-thought. The tracks arrive without defined beginnings or endings, like suspended sonic scenes already in motion before we encounter them. Loops stretch and erode over time—beautiful, luminous, yet almost always clouded by uncertainty. “One last stroll in the garden of light” offers a strong example: bright and inviting, with sharp ornamentations rising from within the drones to catch the light, before the drones and fragmented passages pull it back toward darkness.” – Mohammed Ashraf, Ma3azefhttps://bit.ly/4eqjpHj
“Between futuristic promise, morbid surrealism, and tender melancholy, an atmosphere arises that feels both otherworldly and fragile. Tracks like “This show starts in the future,” “One last stroll in the garden of light,” “I stutter when I speak of love and death,” and “The unfortunate meeting of an accident and the goddess of time on a dissecting table”—the latter a reference to Louis Aragon and simultaneously to the legendary debut of Nurse With Wound—evoke a floating theater of images in which time, form, and memory merge into one another.” – Uwe Schneider, African Paperhttps://africanpaper.com/2026/05/02/charbel-haber-may-a-soft-sun-bless-your-sky-while-you-wait-for-the-inevitable/
“The gentleness of Charbel Haber’s new album conceals emotions and places, offering a renewed way of inhabiting the world in times of war and exile. The cover artwork, by Ali Cherri, resonates deeply—its correspondences are striking, unsettling, and never forgetful.” – Joseph Ghosn via Substack https://substack.com/@josephghosn/
“The album’s sonic architecture is deeply tied to its conceptual concerns. Loops evolve like consciousness itself—constantly updating, feeding back into their own transformations. Death is not treated as an event but as a horizon: something that shapes the trajectory of the sound without ever fully arriving. This gives the music its peculiar tension—slow, restrained, yet always moving toward an unseen endpoint.” – A Closer Listen https://acloserlisten.com/2026/04/22/charbel-haber-may-a-soft-sun-bless-your-sky-while-you-wait-for-the-inevitable/
“Here warbling, tinny guitar samples float between cavernous drone and what sounds like a chorus of angels, recalling some of Jefre Cantu-Ledesma’s early drone work.” – Graham Latham, anything / everything newsletter https://anything-everything.ghost.io/mad-enough-to-stay/
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)
The Dome Sessions emerged from the architectural and acoustic qualities of the dome designed by Oscar Niemeyer in 1962 in Tripoli, Lebanon. Since 2010, Firas El Hallak has used this space as a site for sonic experiments, exploring the relationships between sound, space, and memory. The dome’s distinctive reverb and resonance have shaped a series of recordings that capture the characteristics of the structure while evoking the untold stories held within its walls.
What began as an individual pursuit evolved into a collective project. Artists and collaborators joined forces, contributing to a body of work that reflects the layered history and collective memory of the dome. Each piece resonates with the space’s acoustics, dissolving the boundaries between past and present, personal and communal.
These recordings extend beyond a musical album; they form part of the soundtrack for an upcoming film that examines the dome’s place in Tripoli’s cultural and historical fabric. The Dome Sessions therefore becomes an exploration of place, identity, and collective history through multiple senses.
At its core, the project highlights the power of collective action. It demonstrates how reclaiming spaces can breathe new life into the forgotten. By transforming the dome into a site of collaboration, the collective emphasizes the role of art in preserving and reinterpreting heritage. The Dome Sessions invites listeners to a shared experience of space through sound.
All tracks recorded on-site by Tunefork Studios in April 2023. All tracks mixed at Tunefork Studios by Anthony Sahyoun & Fadi Tabbal, except for Session 8 (mixed by Hadi Deaibess).
Music composed and performed by the artists, except for: Session 1 (Once I Entered a Garden) originally composed by Medhat Assem for Asmahan. Session 10 (Zahrat al-Mada’en) originally composed by the Rahbani Brothers for Fairuz.
Created and produced by Firas El Hallak. Co-produced by Anthony Tawil.
Audio captured by Neumann and supported by Eltek. Mastered by Cedrik Fermont at Syrphe, Berlin.
Album photography by Gabriel Ferneini. Artwork & design by Cynthia-ël Hasbani.
Ziad Nawfal’s monthly broadcast for Radio Alhara in Bethlehem, Palestine — playing Lebanese musician & producer Fadi Tabbal’s latest album in full, along with a selection of some of his recent production work.
Track List:
FADI TABBAL — I RECOGNIZE YOU FROM MY SKETCHES
1. (keep beating)
2. Absence or death
3. Oh Heart!
4. Oh heart, are you burning
5. All those nights
6. You were right
7. (keep pumping)
8. When we swam together
9. (keep thumping)
10. I am all that is left
+
11. Snakeskin (Julia Sabra & Fadi Tabbal) – Snakeskin
12. Elyse Tabet – Sequel / live to tell (with Nadine Makarem)
13. Charbel Haber & Fadi Tabbal – La certitude de l’aube
14. Charbel Haber, Joseph Ghosn, Fadi Tabbal – In A Technicolor Dream, You and I Were Floating in The Caspian Sea
15. Mayssa Jallad – Holiday Inn March 21 to 29
16. Postcards – Coins (with Sary Moussa)
The text and credits below are taken from the album’s release page on Bandcamp, with permission from NAHAL]
August 4th, 2020. Beirut explodes. The city, already partially shuttered by covid lockdowns and reeling from numerous political and social crises, is submerged by dust and smoke. Destroyed, gutted, at the mercy of a destiny unsparing with its blows, it finds itsels on its knees just when its residents were hoping for a moment of calm.
At Tunefork Studios, in the district of Bourj Hammoud, where Fadi Tabbal assembles the creations of adventurous musicians from all over the world (Field Works, Asil Ensemble, Mike Cooper, Oiseaux-Tempête, Praed, Youmna Saba), work goes on despite the storms raging around a community weary with grief. The recording studio still stands after the collapse, but other places did not survive. Many clubs and social spaces are in ruins. They were made of brick and mortar – no match against explosive ammonium nitrate – but they were first and foremost necessary and unifying refuges, cultural symbols full of a passion that not even the rising dawn could abrade.
Initially the soundtrack to an experimental film by Nadim Tabet, the four tracks of Enfin La Nuit accompanied images of a Beirut youth that was still dancing at euphoric parties, just a few months before the explosion. This time around, the two major players of the Lebanese music scene Charbel Haber (Scrambled Eggs, The Bunny Tylers, Johnny Kafta Anti-Vegetarian Orchestra, Malayeen…) and Fadi Tabbal (The Bunny Tylers, The Incompetents…) are the actors of that film, in which the story unfolds in real time. Amidst the rubble, is it real life or another movie?
Taking the form of an itinerary, the journey begins up high, in the sky, under the partially veiled canopy of yesterday’s tragedies. Drawn-out effects-laden guitar layers and modular synthesiser patches pile up, as if levitating. The submerged vocal loops of singer Julia Sabra (Postcards) haunt the next piece, “Chaque rose porte en elle une petite mort”. A slow cosmic ethereal ascent towards an other place with unquantifiable dimensions. We then plummet down thousands of miles in “Couvre-feu”, a sonic lament where the notes flow under the bow like tears. There’s a synthesizer riddled in ennui, electric nostalgia, voiceless and wordless but still so close in feeling to a real malaise.
We arrive at our destination, where the end doubles as a luminous opening. “La certitude de l’aube” is a sophisticated superposition of several guitar and synth lines – sometimes distant, filtered through a powerful reverb, other times right up close, liquid and undulating. It’s a surprisingly spatial piece that opens new horizons as it progresses, to end up in a scenery larger than life, that finally evaporates in a final murmur.
Haber and Tabbal love cinema. They give the image a second narration and turn a chain of sequences into a story to get lost in. In their language, a few words are enough to build the textures of an entire sonic world. Just a guitar plugged into effect pedals and a few synthesizers behind these long poetic sentences, where the softness and the gradual drowsiness are only there to recall the ever-lurking violence. We’re close in spirit here to the ambient music of Stars of the Lid, or the approach of composers like Terry Riley and Arvo Pärt, backdropped by a certain stifled chaos specific to the changing moods of the city of Beirut. Enfin La Nuit is a requiem for all the fallen bodies, for those who resist, of flesh and rock, of blood and music.
Music composed, performed and recorded by Charbel Haber and Fadi Tabbal at Tunefork Studios, Beirut. Vocal loops on “Chaque rose porte en elle une petite mort” by Julia Sabra.
Mixed and mastered by Camille Jamain. Photographs by Myriam Boulos. Design by Thibault Proux.
Released by NAHAL Recordings in June 2023. Distributed in North America by Ruptured.
Available as a digital album and limited edition vinyl LP.
Coinciding with the release of Lebanese musician and producer MARC CODSI’s new album THE SILENCE BETWEEN THE NEW WORLD AND THE AFTERMATH by Ruptured, Ziad Nawfal’s monthly mix for RADIO ALHARA consisted exclusively of tracks by Marc Codsi, taken from both his solo and various group projects.
Marc Codsi – 1979 [Faded Postcards]
Scrambled Eggs – We Should Share More Than Circumstance [No Special Date nor A Deity to Venerate]
Lumi – Raised in Fire [The Night Was a Liar]
Marc Codsi – Piano Part 2 [Faded Postcards]
Marc Codsi – A Light [V/A Nisf Madeena]
Zalfa – Law Ma [Fi Dam]
Scrambled Eggs – Just [Nevermind Where, Just Drive]
Marc Codsi – Invocation I [A New World]
Marc Codsi – Hangar #12 [The Silence Between the New World and The Aftermath]
Marc Codsi – Empty Resonant Shells [V/A Anthology of Electroacoustic Lebanese Music]
Marc Codsi – Faded Postcard 1 [Faded Postcards]
Marc Codsi – Finding Home [The Silence Between the New World and The Aftermath]
This mix was commissioned by Movement Athens for its radio festival “Exploring Mediterranean Futures” [Feb. 15-19, 2022], a 5-day radio festival focused on the sounds of the Mediterranean, searching for geographical and chronological connections through its culture, ideas and people.
Ziad Nawfal’s mix presents music recorded by various artists and bands from Beirut’s indie and experimental music scenes, between 2010 and 2021. A few of the tracks were officially released in some form or another, some of them are early drafts and demos, and a couple consist of live sessions recorded during Nawfal’s 35-year tenure at Beirut’s crumbling government station Radio Liban.
Fadi Tabbal – After the Fire, Before the End [Unreleased]
Charbel Haber & Sary Moussa – And Yet Another Romance on A Sinking Ship [V/A The Drone Sessions Vol. 1]
Scrambled Eggs & A Trio – Beach Party at Mirna el Chalouhi (Diamond Setter’s Rework) [Unreleased]
The Art of Boo – BoomKaboom [Unreleased]
Safa – Dominant Gene [V/A Lost Archives]
Jad Atoui – FDBCK [Unreleased]
Tres Milliones Dolares – Jon Black [V/A Anthology of Electroacoustic Lebanese Music]
Ziad Moukarzel – Questions of Worry [V/A Anthology of Electroacoustic Lebanese Music]
Coinciding with the release of Lebanese musician and producer Fadi Tabbal’s new album MUSIC FOR THE LONELY Vol.2 by Lebanese indie label Ruptured, Ziad Nawfal’s monthly mix for Ma3azef consisted exclusively of tracks by Fadi Tabbal, both from his solo and various group projects.
Fadi Tabbal – Woolgathering (2013)
The Bunny Tylers – While Her Blood Screams His Name (2016)
Stress Distress – What Children Dream About (2019)
Scrambled Eggs – SE + SS, MK & FT (2010)
Under The Carpet – Rock Bottom (2015)
Fadi Tabbal – The Quiet Earth (2013)
Stress Distress – Night [Theme from Days of Gone 2] (2016)
Fadi Tabbal – The New and Improved Guide to Birdwatching Vol.2 (2020)
Fadi Tabbal – Music for Circles (2018)
Fadi Tabbal – How’s Annie (Edit) (2016)
Fadi Tabbal – Crystal Palace (2015)
The Bunny Tylers – Contact Transfer Stains (2016)
Fadi Tabbal – Ceremony by The Sea (2020)
Fadi Tabbal – Snow Scene [with Ghassan Sahhab] (2022)
Ruptured Music 