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 musician and producer JOY MOUGHANNI. Originally commissioned by Stegi Radio and produced by Onassis Stegi.
Joy Moughanni is a Beirut-based producer, engineer, and songwriter, and a partner at Tunefork Studios. He emerged from Beirut’s alternative scene through the electronic and pop projects Pomme Rouge and Gizzmo, producing four EPs before moving into a solo practice and becoming a collaborator with artists across the region.
TRACK LISTING:
Joy Moughanni – The Voice I’ve Yet To Understand
Autechre – M4 Lema
Ben Frost – Killshot
SANAM – Sametou Sawtan
Sary Moussa – A Storm, a Gift
aya – hexed!
Jerusalem In My Heart – Tanto
NP [Jad Atoui & Anthony Sahyoun] – Coins With Memory
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 musician and composer FATEN KANAAN. Originally commissioned by Stegi Radio and produced by Onassis Stegi.
Faten Kanaan is a composer whose work uses counterpoint as a narrative tool to craft music that is mysterious, smudgy, and deeply melodic. Of Syrian, Palestinian, Jordanian, and Lebanese heritage, Kanaan was born in Germany, grew up between Europe and the Middle East, and is now based in Amman, Jordan. Recent concerts have included appearances supporting Alessandro Cortini, Colin Stetson, Blonde Redhead, and William Basinski.
TRACK LISTING:
1. Broadcast – Monica (Berberian Sound Studio)*
2. Zbigniew Preisner – Alexandre (La double vie de Véronique)*
3. Farah Kaddour & Marwan Tohme – Ghazel
4. Kitka – D-oi rgăoa (Romanian)
5. Ellie Wilson – Sanctuary
6. Carter Burwell – Theme from Blood Simple*
7. Os Mutantes – Le premier bonheur du jour
8. Wadi el Safi – Daq bab el beit (excerpt)
9. Hikaru Hayashi – Theme de l’eau (L’ile nue)*
10. Marcel Khalife – My Song (excerpt)
11. Martien Keesmaat – Erik Satie – Danses de travers
12. Faten Kanaan – Book of Changes
13. Park Hye Ri – Strange Sun (Boys Over Flowers – excerpt)*
14. Fadi Tabbal – And Then…
15. Basiani Ensemble – Shen Khar Venakhi (Svetitskhoveli Tradition)
16. Michel Polnareff – Sous quelle étoile suis-je né? (excerpt)
17. Ahmad Malek – Omar Gatlato*
18. Snakeskin – Olive groves
19. Nishimura Naoaki – Nocturne #1
20. In-Resonance Collective – Fayha Choir//Zahrat al Madain (excerpt)
21. Pascal Danel – Kilimandjaro (excerpt)
22. Księżyc – Klepana
23. SANAM – Goblin
24. Imed Alibi & Khalil EPI – Hattaya
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.
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 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)
We live in sand is the 3rd album from SNAKESKIN, the Beirut-based duo of Julia Sabra and Fadi Tabbal.
Written in October 2024, just as Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza fully spread to Lebanon and finally reached Beirut, the album is their darkest and rawest yet, exploring what it feels like to wait, to love, to grieve, and to keep living while the world falls apart. Pairing Tabbal’s masterful production with Sabra’s vivid imagery and evocative singing, the duo, as Resident Advisor put it, mines “deep emotional depths by tempering dream pop’s sweet-natured reverie with experimental snarl.” Bearing witness to impossible events, We live in sand is a complex and nuanced work, balancing forward-thinking pop sensibilities with relentless realism and a poetic spirit of empathy.
Composed, performed and produced by Julia Sabra and Fadi Tabbal between Beirut and Bern. Lyrics by Julia Sabra. Drum samples by Pascal Semerdjian.
Mixed by Radwan Ghazi Moumneh at Hotel2Tango, Montreal. Mastered by Harris Newman at Grey Market Mastering, Montreal.
Album art, band portrait, and “October sun” video by Mohamad Abdouni. Design by Josette Khalil.
This album is the third volume in the Corrosion Series, a collaborative effort by Beacon Sound in Portland and Ruptured in Beirut.
Ruptured Music 