For two nights, members of Lebanese sextetย SANAM and a lineup of collaborators will take the stage at Montreal’s Hotel2Tangoย for a series of solo and duo performances. While the band itself wonโt be performing, these sets will highlight the individual artistry of its members alongside special guests, exploring free-rock, post-folk, and experimental sounds in an intimate setting.
Hotel2Tangoย โ 110 Van Horne, Montreal QC Monday, June 23 & Tuesday, June 24 Doorsย 8 PM |ย Musicย 8:30 PM Entranceย $20
Sandy Chamoun (Solo)
A solo set focused on vocal performance, blending tradition and contemporary experimentation.
Farah Kaddour (Solo)
A performance rooted in folk and classical Arabic music, showcasing her mastery of the buzuq.
Radwan Ghazi Moumneh & Anthony Sahyoun (Duo)
Radwan Ghazi Moumneh, co-owner of Hotel2Tango, joins Anthony Sahyoun for an exploratory duo performance.
NIGHT 2 โ TUESDAY, JUNE 24
Antonio Hajj, Jessica Moss & Pascal Semerdjian (Trio)
SANAMโs rhythm sectionโAntonio Hajj and Pascal Semerdjianโteams up with avant-garde violinist Jessica Moss for a unique collaboration.
Farah Kaddour & Marwan Tohme (Duo โ Cassette Album Launch)
A special set celebrating the release of Farah and Marwan’s new cassette onย Ruptured Records, offering an exclusive first listen.
Anthony Sahyoun (Solo)
A closing performance featuring a key voice of Beirutโs experimental music scene.
On Ghadr, Sandy Chamoun, Anthony Sahyoun and Jad Atoui play with chaos. Built on group improvisation, surges of coruscating electronics and distortion meld with vocals that, while stemming from a background in classical Arabic singing, seek to reroute tradition. “We explore rhythmic structures that donโt have specific time signatures,โ says Atoui about his and Sahyounโs use of synthesis to embrace the tension between order and chaos. โSandyโs approach to singing isnโt necessarily very rigid either. We felt a common inspiration.”
The album, whose title imperfectly translates to ‘Treachery’, began on a residency in Switzerland while the trio were touring Europe (Chamoun solo, Atoui and Sahyoun as their duo NP). It was later finished in their home city of Beirut. The five tracks are built on vibrant circuits of guitar and modular synthesis, the former often acting as a trigger for the latterโs volatile output.
Chamounโs vocals blend her background in classical Arabic music with free-singing, using tradition as a foundation for exploration rather than standards to follow. Apart from “Hayawanon Ghader (treacherous animal)”, all the songsโ lyrics pull from the archive. Opener “Tahal Layl” interprets a Bedouin folk song. “Bihali” is based on a tenth century poem by Abou Firas Al-Hamdani. “Al Moulatham” quotes an Instagram post by Yousef Al-Domouky about the war in Gaza. “Al Samaa” uses a text from contemporary Lebanese poet Paul Chaoul. “Iโm working with my references, and with the music,” explains Chamoun. “Itโs a playful place with my history and now.”
WATCH a video excerpt by Nour Ouayda
About the albumโs title, Chamoun explains: “On this planet, the only thing thatโs happening now is treachery. Itโs the headline of our days.” Terror in Gaza, its shockwaves through the Middle-East and its place in longer histories loom over the record. However, while Ghadr reflects the present moment, it isnโt consumed by it. The trio agree the album reflects tenderness as much as anger. Itโs audible in the effortless swings between abstract and soaring. The way Chamounโs lyrics put ninth century odes to a bird and ancient Bedouin love songs next to personal reflections by Al-Domouky or Chaoul on real world tragedies.
Sonically and lyrically Ghadr is music of possibility and potential. The five tracks travel through unbounded terrain rather than along fixed paths. “I donโt like to pull the listener in one direction,” Chamoun continues. “You need to play with your imagination and not stick to one story and one meaning.” While the record reflects their state of mind as residents of Lebanon, and the uncertainty that entails, Sahyoun suggests theyโre striving to reach beyond it. “We try to access parts of our subconscious and see what dimensions it has outside of what weโre witnessing day to day. When we play, thereโs a rhythm between the three of us. We feel each other sway,”
Ghadr is the first release under the name Chamoun/Sahyoun/Atoui, but the trioโs connection is deeply rooted. Sahyoun and Chamoun are members of ecstatic rock collective Sanam. Atoui and Sahyounโs explorations of synthesis, solo and as NP, are long-running. On Ghadr these histories form something new. A charged record which faces the world as it is while offering glimpses of something else.
actยทartยทmgt, Heavy Trip & Ruptured present: Nadah El Shazly & Radwan Ghazi Moumneh | Live at Hotel2Tango
Nadah El Shazly and Radwan Ghazi Moumneh present their duo collaboration after a week-long composition residency, in the intimate setting of Hotel2Tango recording studio in Montreal.
Sunday 25 February 2024, 8pm (doors)
Hotel2Tango recording studio, Tiohtia:ke | Montrรฉal.
This is a very limited seating event. No sales at the door. BYOB
This mix was commissioned by Movement Athens for its radio festival โExploring Mediterranean Futuresโ [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 Beirutโs 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 Nawfalโs 35-year tenure at Beirutโs 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]
It had been a while (five good years actually) since we’d done this, so we went 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.
It had been a while (five good years actually) since we’d done this, so we went 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.
Canadian indie label Constellation and Ma3azef resident Ziad Nawfal join forces to curate a 60mn mix of music based on and around Lebanese/Canadian duo Jerusalem In My Heart‘s album “Qalaq”, released in October 2021.ย Featuring several cuts from the album, as well as selected tracks from its outstanding list of contributors.
1. Jerusalem In My Heart – Abyad Barraq
2. Tim Hecker – Acephale
3. Le Rรฉvรฉlateur (Roger Tellier-Craig & Sabrina Rattรฉ) – Afterimage Selves
4. Pacha (Pierre-Guy Blanchard) – Ankara
5. Jerusalem In My Heart – Bein Ithnein
6. Moor Mother – Big Crime
7. Lucrecia Dalt – Disuelta
8. Body Meฯa (Greg Fox / Sasha Frere-Jones / Melvin Gibbs / Grey McMurray) – Bullitt
9. Rabih Beaini – Light Within a Light
10. OISEAUX-TEMPรTE – Out of Sight
11. “A” Trio (Mazen Kerbaj / Sharif Sehnaoui / Raed Yassin) – Over
12. Radwan Ghazi Moumneh – Qaluli (They Told Me)
13. Jerusalem In My Heart – Tanto
14. Alanis Obomsawin – Odana
Ziad Nawfal’s 8th monthly mix for Movement Radio in Athens – featuring music from Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq, Italy, Switzerland, Canada and the USA.ย This mix was commissioned and produced by Onassis Cultural Center, and presented for the first time in the frame of MOVEMENT RADIO.
1. Aken’s Sleep (Pie Are Squared + Ali Soliman) – B|D2.1 [EG]
2. Nur Jaber – Black Potion [LB]
3. Pie Are Squared – Blanket [EG]
4. Raed Yassin – The Cyber Oracle [LB]
5. Sandy Chamoun – Dreams of The Imagination [LB]
6. City of Salt (Paed Conca / Omar Dewachi / Sam Shalabi) – Dreamy Ape [CH/IQ/CA]
7. Radwan Ghazi Moumneh + Stefan Christoff – Radwan Ghazi Moumneh [CA/LB]
8. El Rass & Munma – Elevator Music [LB]
9. The Bunny Tylers – Mothers Make Murderers (Summer 91) [LB]
10. Calamita – FTC [LB/IT]
11. Mutamassik – Long Beards [EG/US/IT]
12. Hassan Khan – Tabla Dubb No.2a [EG]
In this hour-long missive, DJ and curator Ziad Nawfal highlights unreleased and rare music from prominent Lebanese musicians, bringing together โrealms of experimental and electronic musicโ as featured during his time at Irtijal Festival, in his work with the Ruptured record label, and on his long-running shows on Radio Lebanon.
Nawfalโs podcast includes conversations with these artists, providing an oral history of Beirutโs legendary underground:
GHASSAN SALHAB Revolution Intro (sound capture)
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1. FADI TABBAL – After the fire, before the end (feat. Julia Sabra)
2. YOUMNA SABA – Al Arqฤm
3. “A” TRIO – b
4. CHARBEL HABER – Beside a monument to whirling nebulas of murderersโ fantasies, dressed in Sunday best, lay the bodies of docile beasts + Charbel Haber on Radio Lebanon, Beirut
5. MARC CODSI – Invocation I
6. AYA METWALLI – Matkhafsh menni + Aya Metwalli on Radio Lebanon, Beirut
7. RADWAN GHAZI MOUMNEH โ Qaluli + Radwan Ghazi Moumneh on Radio Lebanon, Beirut
8. SHARIF SEHNAOUI – Overdance
9. TWO OR THE DRAGON – Prelude for the triumphant man [Part 1]
10. JAD ATOUI – FDBCK
11. JAWAD NAWFAL & MAZEN EL-SAYED – Pastless
12. ANTHONY SAHYOUN – Two foxes trotting on a lane in Qartaba + Anthony Sahyoun on Radio Lebanon, Beirut
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GHASSAN SALHAB Revolution Outro (sound capture)
Read more about the podcast and Beirut’s Musicians Relief Fund here.
Ruptured Music 