Tag: Pascal Semerdjian

Ruptured Album Release // MAYSSA JALLAD // Marjaa: The Battle Of The Hotels

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Released March 3rd, 2023:
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..

“Marjaa: The Battle of the Hotels” is a concept album born of the idea of merging singer/songwriter Mayssa Jallad’s two vocations: music and urban research/architectural history. Written in collaboration with producer Fadi Tabbal, the music builds upon Tabbal’s spatial approach to sound and Jallad’s research on Beirut’s Hotel District.
The album is a reference to Jallad’s Historic Preservation master’s  thesis, in which she detailed the history of the “Battle of the Hotels”, a 5-months battle that took place in Beirut at the beginning of the Lebanese Civil War, from October 22nd, 1975 to March 29th, 1976.
Jallad saw architecture as a main protagonist of the battle, as she discovered it was the first high rise urban battle in the world. The close of the battle resulted in the 15-year Green Line, an urban rift which split Beirut into “East and West”, restricting movement and communication and creating a violent divide that still resonates today.
“Marjaa” comprises two parts. Part A: Dahaliz, is a stroll in the city, where Jallad tries (and fails) to follow an old map. Musician Youmna Saba is a companion in this journey of remembering the once winding corridors (“Dahaliz”) of the city, destroyed by new developments since the 1960s. Empty skyscrapers propel her onto a past filled with the violence of snipers, and a present filled with the glamorous injustice of empty luxury real estate endorsed by powerful warlords-turned-politicians.
In Part B: Maaraka, Jallad inhabits the building of the Battle of the Hotels, as its events unfold. She calls the fighting militias the Blues and Reds, respectively the Lebanese Front (Christian Nationalists) and the Lebanese National Movement (Pro-Palestinian leftists), leveling the playing field, and drawing a map of the battle through songwriting. Sary Moussa produces the conclusion of the battle in “Holiday Inn (March 21 to 29)”, which ends with the ultimate severance of the city of Beirut.
The music caters to post-war youth who have never been taught this difficult history. Once we consider the “Battle of the Hotels” as our common heritage, it provides an opportunity to teach the value of civil peace. It is also a call to protest for the renewal, rather than the recycling of the political class that has once destroyed the country and holds us, to this day, hostage of its violence.

Featuring Youmna Saba, Marwan Tohme, Pascal Semerdjian, Julia Sabra, Farah Kaddour, Sary Moussa, Yara Asmar and Fadi Tabbal.

Out on March 03, 2023.

Listen/Order here

WATCH the video for Markaz Azraq (December 6).

READ Brad Rose’s interview with Mayssa Jallad in Foxy Digitalis.

READ Christina Hazboun’s album review in Bandcamp.

READ Maha El Nabawy’s album review in SceneNoise.

Ziad Nawfal Guest Mix for Movement Radio // 03 January 2023

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Ziad Nawfal’s monthly mix for Movement Radio in Athens, featuring music from Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Egypt, Tunisia, Iran, the UK and the USA. This mix was commissioned and produced by Onassis Cultural Center, and presented for the first time in the frame of MOVEMENT RADIO.

1. SANDY CHAMOUN – Ahlam al khayal [LB]
2. BENNU [PIE ARE SQUARED & PYLON&ON&ON] – Asteroid Walk [EG]
3. 700 BLISS [DJ HARAM & MOOR MOTHER] – Basic [US/UK]
4. SAFA – Bel Abbes [LB]
5. POSTCARDS – Coins (with Sary Moussa) [LB]
6. TEDTEDTED – Dancerep [LB]
7. AZU TIWALINE – Deep Theko [TN]
8. MUQATA’A – Dijla Wal Fada’ [PS]
9. MUSLIMGAUZE – An End [UK]
10. MOHAMMAD REZA MORTAZAVI – Exploring [IR]
11. JULMUD – Fel Bo2s [PS]
12. TOUMBA – Floating on The Dead Sea [JO]
13. SOTE – Forced Absence [IR]
14. ASIFEH – Oxygen Deluxe [PS]

Photo by Georges Daou

Ziad Nawfal Guest Mix for Movement Radio // 06 December 2022

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Ziad Nawfal’s monthly mix for Movement Radio in Athens, featuring music from Lebanon, Egypt, Belgium and Canada. This mix was commissioned and produced by Onassis Cultural Center, and presented for the first time in the frame of MOVEMENT RADIO.

  1. Jerusalem In My Heart – Ana Lisan Wahad (feat. Farida Amadou & Pierre-Guy Blanchard) [LB/CA/BE]
  2. Abadir – Bass Belly [EG]
  3. TEDTEDTED – Calculators [LB]
  4. Liliane Chlela – Charr [LB]
  5. Rise 1969 – Floating Memory [LB]
  6. Etyen – Goodbye [LB]
  7. Sary Moussa – In Praise of Shadows [LB]
  8. Yara Asmar – it’s always october on sunday [LB]
  9. Elyse Tabet with Pascal Semerdjian & Yara Asmar – Low Toms [LB]
  10. Sandy Chamoun – Nas el Wahel [LB]
  11. Pie Are Squared – Oscillate Thrice [EG]
  12. Maurice Louca – Saet el Hazz (feat. “A” Trio) [EG/LB]
  13. Julia Sabra & Fadi Tabbal – Snakeskin [LB]
Photo by Georges Daou

Ziad Nawfal Guest Mix for Radio Alhara // 21 December 2022

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A Ziad Nawfal mix for Radio Alhara in Bethlehem, Palestine – showcasing all of Ruptured’s releases in 2022.
With music by Lebanese artists Fadi Tabbal, El Rass & Munma, Daou, Marc Codsi, Julia Sabra, Elyse Tabet, Pascal Semerdjian, and Yara Asmar.

1. Julia Sabra & Fadi Tabbal – All The Birds (from Snakeskin)
2. Marc Codsi – Back To The Silence (from The Silence Between The New World And The Aftermath)
3. Daou – Beginnings (from Sanctuary)
4. El Rass & Munma – Borkan Beirut (from Kachf El Mahjoub / 10th Anniversary Vinyl Reissue)
5. Elyse Tabet with Pascal Semerdjian & Yara Asmar – Bright Bells (from Low Toms Bright Bells and Darkest Spells)
6. Marc Codsi – Finding Home
7. Fadi Tabbal – Hotel Room
8. Daou – Odd Light
9. Elyse Tabet with Pascal Semerdjian & Yara Asmar – Low Toms
10. Marc Codsi – Hangar #12
11. El Rass & Munma – Min Tha2er
12. Elyse Tabet with Pascal Semerdjian & Yara Asmar – Low Toms Through the Paper Shredder
13. Julia Sabra & Fadi Tabbal – One By One
14. Daou – Sauldre
15. Fadi Tabbal – Snow Scene (with Ghassan Sahhab)
16. Julia Sabra & Fadi Tabbal – Snakeskin

(2022 end-of-year lists) – PASCAL SEMERDJIAN

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It is the most wonderful time of the year.
We asked some of Ruptured’s recent contributors and collaborators, to tell us about the records they listened to the most in 2022.
Pascal Semerdjian’s collaborative album with Elyse Tabet, Low Toms Bright Bells and Darkest Spells, was released by Ruptured in December. 

PASCAL SEMERDJIAN

Ziad Nawfal Guest Mix for Radio Alhara // 19 October 2022

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Ziad Nawfal’s monthly mix for Radio Alhara in Bethlehem, Palestine, with music from Lebanon, Egypt, and the USA.

  1. Heroes and Villains – Snake and feather [LB]
  2. Cosmic Analog Ensemble – S’aventurer [LB]
  3. Interbellum – Another day [LB]
  4. Préfaces [Charif Megarbane, Salim Naffah & Pascal Semerdjian] – Embarator [LB]
  5. The New Year – Snow [US]
  6. Kid Fourteen – Blood thick silence [LB]
  7. Toni Geitani – Raboukom [LB]
  8. Nadah el-Shazly – Afqid ad dakhira [EG]
  9. El Rass & Munma – Return of the penguin [LB]
  10. The Bunny Tylers – Hello your grace [LB]
  11. Oiseaux-Tempete & The Bunny Tylers – Little known ending fading away [LB/FR]
  12. Radwan Ghazi Moumneh – Ya dam’at al ‘ain [LB/CA]
  13. Tony Elieh & Sharif Sehnaoui – Woe to him [LB]

Ruptured Album Release // ELYSE TABET with Pascal Semerdjian and Yara Asmar // LOW TOMS BRIGHT BELLS AND DARKEST SPELLS

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Arriving December 2nd, 2022:
Acclaimed Lebanese producer Elyse Tabet’s first full-length release for Ruptured, featuring rising talent Yara Asmar and seasoned sessionist Pascal Semerdjian from shoegaze trio Postcards.

ELYSE TABET is a Lebanese audiovisual artist and electronic musician. She works with recorded and synthesized sound to create electro-acoustic landscapes and deconstructed rhythmics, drawing her inspiration from musique concrète, ambient, industrial electronica, dub and garage beats. Elyse began working in the field of audiovisual interaction in the early 2000s, mainly as a videographer for live performances and DJ sets. She has collaborated on projects with electronic producer Jawad Nawfal, drummer and producer Nabil Saliba, electronic musician Yangfan Li, video artist Maureen Castera, and Lisbon-based artist and curator Violeta Lisboa. Elyse is a co-founder of the Beirut Synthesizer Center.

Low Toms Bright Bells and Darkest Spells is Elyse’s third release, following Newfound Grids on Berlin-based Syrphe in 2013 and Coast on Beirut-based label VV-VA in 2020, the latter a duo with Lebanese musician Jawad Nawfal.

Music composed by Elyse Tabet with Yara Asmar and Pascal Semerdjian. Recorded in December 2021 and January 2022 by Fadi Tabbal at Tunefork Studios, Beirut. Mixed and produced by Elyse Tabet, with additional mixing by Fadi Tabbal. Mastered by Cedrik Fermont at Syrphe, Berlin.

Out on December 02, 2022.

Listen/Order at Ruptured

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Ruptured + Beacon Sound Album Release // JULIA SABRA AND FADI TABBAL // Snakeskin

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Arriving October 14, 2022:
SNAKESKIN is the first full-length by mainstays of the Lebanese music scene JULIA SABRA and FADI TABBAL. Snakeskin marks the sixth collaboration between Ruptured and Portland-based indie label Beacon Sound, and is the second release in our Corrosion Series, following Anthony Sahyoun’s solo album Proof By Infinite Descent in 2021.

Snakeskin was born in the aftermath of the August 4 2020 port explosion in Beirut, which decimated several of the city’s neighborhoods – it is a reflection on what it means to feel at home in a place where “there is no rebirth, no renewal,” as the artists put it. Shapeshifting above ambient and industrial undercurrents, the album is visionary electronic dream pop, utilizing tape loops, synthesizers, vocals, and drum machines, combining Julia’s pop-inspired melodies and choral roots (an echo from her religious upbringing) with Fadi’s affinity for minimalism and musique concrète.

“The moon speaks in tongues we can’t discern / A plastic dove hangs from a cypress branch / Haven’t you heard? / Nothing grows here anymore / The air is burnt / Nothing grows…”

Recorded by Fadi Tabbal, mixed by Sary Moussa and Fadi at Tunefork Studios in Beirut. Drum samples by Pascal Semerdjian. Cover photo by Lujain Jo + graphic design by Josette ‘ZOoz’ Khalil. Mastered by Rashad Becker.

Out on October 14, 2022 as a limited vinyl edition + digital release.

Buy/Listen at Ruptured
Buy/Listen at Beacon Sound

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(2021 end-of-year lists) – POSTCARDS

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It’s been a while (five good years actually) since we’ve done this, and so we’ve gone ahead and asked the musicians whom we worked with this year in some respect or other, to tell us about their favorite albums of 2021.

POSTCARDS 

– Anthony Sahyoun: Proof Of Infinite Descent
– Kinematik: Ensemble 1: Al Jadi
– Juana Molina: Segundo (21st Anniversary)
– Dolphin Midwives: Body of Water
– Beach House: Once Twice Melody
– Grouper: Shade
– Jessica Moss: Phosphenes
– Ben Shemie: 303 Diary
– Squid: Bright Green Field
– Low: HEY WHAT

Ziad Nawfal Guest Mix for Radio Alhara // 16 June 2021

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Ziad Nawfal’s monthly mix for Radio Alhara in Bethlehem – Music from Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt, Switzerland, Canada and the USA:

  1. Postcards – Home Is So Sad
  2. Twyn Towers – Ave Pariah
  3. Préfaces – El Jaguar
  4. Wake Island – Sleep 2.0
  5. Pomme Rouge – Honey Crisp (Etyen Rework)
  6. Rise 1969 – Vah Naboris (Etyen Remix)
  7. Tryangle Man – Esmeray
  8. Yasmine Hamdan – Al Jamilat (Matias Aguayo Remix)
  9. Liliane Chlela – Moukassarat
  10. Jana Saleh – Al Atlal (Om Kalthoum Rework) [excerpt]
  11. Kamilya Jubran & Werner Hasler – Wa Part 1 [excerpt]
  12. Praed Orchestra! – Mirage 72
  13. Nadah el Shazly – Barzakh
  14. Maurice Louca – The Palm Of A Ghost (feat. Nadah el Shazly)
  15. Rêves Sonores – Seers Theme