Ruptured
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Sold outFor its 20th release, Lebanese indie label Ruptured presents the free-rock powerhouse trio of Lebanese musicians Sharif Sehnaoui and Tony Elieh, on electric guitar and bass respectively, and drummer Davide Zolli from Italian psych rock collective Squadra Omega.Visit product page →
The music was composed and played by Sehnaoui, Elieh and Zolli, and recorded in one single take by Matt Bordin at Outside Inside Studios on October 6, 2016.
The album was mastered by Harris Newman at Grey Market Mastering, and is released by Lebanese imprint Ruptured as a limited edition of 300 copies.
Tracklisting:
1. FTC
2. Too Young To Rock'n'Roll
3. Al'Il
4. Another One Of Those Very Long Go
Release Date: 02/03/2018 -
Sold outVisit product page →Calamita is an instrumental power-rock trio composed of Lebanese musicians Sharif Sehnaoui (electric guitar) and Tony Elieh (electric bass) and Italian drummer Davide Zolli.
One of the initiators of legendary Lebanese experimental festival Irtijal, Sehnaoui is famous for his numerous improv projects, including 'A' Trio, BAO and Wormholes. A founding member of Lebanese indie rock band Scrambled Eggs, Elieh is one of the most prominent musicians from Beirut's rock scene, and currently a member of various projects including Karkhana and Electric Wormholes. Drummer Zolli is a member of famed Italian psychedelic rock collective Squadra Omega.
Calamita released its eponymous first album in 2018, and followed it up with a large-scale European tour the following year. The trio's tour was punctuated by a high-octane performance in Beirut's iconic venue Metro al-Madina, with a number of guests that included experimental French guitarist Jean-Marc Montera.Calamita's current album "Nemesis" consists of tracks that were constructed and played during the 2018 tour - the music went through a lengthy editing and mixing process during the early months of the pandemic, before reaching its current, abrasive state. Recorded and mixed by Fadi Tabbal, mastered by Harris Newman of Greymarket fame, and packaged in a superb sleeve courtesy of Studio Safar's head of design Hatem Imam.
Tracklisting:
1. Only The A
2. Life Will Toy with Us
3. The Industry
4. Oasis -
![El Rass & Munma - Kachf el Mahjoub / Unveiling the Hidden [10th Anniversary Reissue] Vinyl LP](//cargorecordsdirect.co.uk/cdn/shop/products/elrassandmunma_grande.jpg?v=1647859958)
Ruptured
El Rass & Munma - Kachf el Mahjoub / Unveiling the Hidden [10th Anniversary Reissue] Vinyl LP
£21.99
vRuptured
El Rass & Munma - Kachf el Mahjoub / Unveiling the Hidden [10th Anniversary Reissue] Vinyl LP
£21.99
Jawad Nawfal and Mazen El Sayed, better known by their stage names of MUNMA and EL RASS, met for the first time in Beirut, during the summer of 2011. A common friend told Jawad wonders about an MC who rapped and slammed in the classical Arabic language, as opposed to the vernacular Lebanese dialect.Visit product page →
The two musicians met in a small café in Beirut’s Hamra neighborhood, spoke of music, argued about politics, and decided to collaborate at once. They began working on tracks the following day. A month later, they had already produced a dozen sketches, instrumental beds and accapella vocal tracks. These demos eventually landed in the hands of Ziad Nawfal and Fadi Tabbal, who set out to bring to life the duo's first recorded album. "Kachf el Mahjoub" (the title is from a Sufi master-work penned some 900 years ago) was eventually released as a limited edition of 500 CD's, during a launch event at then-budding alternative venue Metro al Madina in Hamra, on the 22nd of February 2012.
These CDs went out of print in record time, as can be expected, and the album's mythical status became reinforced over time – El Rass & Munma collaborated sporadically during the next ten years, but never fully grasped the level of musical intensity and explosive tension attained on this first outing. It has been a longstanding dream of ours, here at Ruptured, to produce a vinyl version of this album, and we are thrilled to say this moment has finally come.
Artist ALI RAFEI's original artworks have been painstakingly reproduced, the music has been dutifully remastered for vinyl by CEDRIK FERMONT, and the records were pressed by our friends at Mother Tongue in Verona. We added bonus track "Fi Kala'at Tarablus" to this 10th anniversary reissue for good measure – recorded during the same sessions that yielded "Kachf el Mahjoub", it appears on the digital version of the album.
"Kachf el Mahjoub" is a landmark album in Lebanon’s alternative music scene, and the MENA region’s hiphop and indie scenes writ large. At the time of their collaboration, El Sayed was a prolific writer and musician, at ease with a variety of instruments, notorious for his masterful flow in the classical Arabic language, with lyrics tackling both social and political sensitive subjects; Nawfal has previously released an impressive number of albums and EPs, exploring downtempo electronica and ambient dubstep, for a number of Lebanese and international labels.
The collision of the former's brazen, slammed vocals and the latter's harsh beats works wonders on "Kachf el Mahjoub", Munma's sound-world perfectly fitting El Rass's agitated discourse, alternating between broken beats, elaborate percussion, and ambient layers of synths. At times reminiscent of mutant hiphop outfit Shabazz Palaces, at others of the collaboration between dubstep producer Kode9 and the late vocalist The SpaceApe, this album is an uncanny meeting of Arabic hip-hop and electronica, an exceptional event in the realm of contemporary Lebanese alternative music.
Tracklisting:
1. Fout 3a rassi / Enter the head
2. Tkhayal / Conceive
3. Borkan Beirut
4. Rissala / Sub-litteral
5. 3echq / Islamology
6. Sanadet / Treasury Bonds
7. Nou7 / The Noah
8. Yoga
9. 7issar / Trojan
10. Min Tha2er / Les Justes
11. Majnoun Leila / Mad is Laila
12. Tkhayal [Sary Moussa Remix]
13. Fee Qala'at Tarablus / In the Fort of Tripoli [Bonus Track] -
Limited edition of 250 copies.Visit product page →
Third solo album from Fadi Tabbal, lead guitarist with Lebanese psychedelic rock band The Incompetents and various others. This album continues further the work of sound exploration through guitar treatments, which began with 'On the Rooftop Looking Up' (2013) - a finely-devised interaction of ambient soundscapes with John Fahey-inspired acoustic meanderings - and developed further on 2015's 'Museum of Disappearing Buildings' - an interplay of ambient guitar drones and grainy electronics.
For his third album, Tabbal continues further his exploration of electronics, beats and synthetic sounds through his guitar. The single, 32-minute track brings to mind the early work of sonic mavericks Ben Frost, Tim Hecker and Daniel Lopatin. Recorded live in one take without any cuts or overdubs.
Tracklisting:
1:How's Annie -
Sold outFadi Tabbal, lead guitarist with Lebanese psychedelic rock band The Incompetents and various other alternative outfits, releases his second solo album, 'Museum of Disappearing Buildings', in November 2015. This album continues further the work of sound exploration through guitar treatments, which began with 'On the Rooftop Looking Up' in 2013.Visit product page →
While the young guitarist's first album featured a finely-devised interaction of ambient soundscapes and John Fahey-inspired finger-picking acoustic meanderings, this second solo outing adopts a different approach: it relies on an interplay of ambient guitar drones and grainy electronics, which recalls to a degree the work of early Krautrock vanguard artists from the 1970's, the leftfield exploration of British electro-acoustic practitioners from the mid-1970's, as well as the radical works of American minimalistic composers from the 1960's.
Similarly to his first outing, Tabbal preferred a radical and direct approach to composition and recording, opting for the intimacy and self-reflection of home recordings, rather than the traditional environment of a recording studio. At the heart of the album, resides one unifying concept, which finds its way into the resulting musical bed: the sketches and impossible structures and urban configurations of Russian paper architects Brodsky and Utkin.
Tracklisting:
1. A Bridge
2. A Glass Tower
3. A Hill With A Hole
4. A Bridge Across the Precipice
5. Doll's House
6. Wandering Turtle in a Maze of a Big City
7. A Bridge Across the Precipice in the High Mountains
8. A Monument of the Year 2000
9. Crystal Palace
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On his fifth solo album "Subject to Potential Errors and Distortions', Lebanese producer, engineer, and musician Fadi Tabbal delves deeper into the theme of alienation in a suffocating city.Visit product page →
Composed and conceived almost entirely at his home in Beirut during Covid-19 quarantine, the record is his most intimate yet.
While his previous solo work consisted solely of guitar pieces, this time Tabbal adds tape loops, vocal samples and synthesizers to his sound palette in an attempt to convey the subjectivity of memory and our tendency to write and rewrite history according to the present.
The result is seven pieces that veer between minimalism and ambient music akin to recent outings by Pan American's Mark Nelson and mid-period Stars of the Lid.
Tracklisting:
Side A:
1. The New and Improved Guide to Birdwatching Vol.1
2. On the Escape Boat
3. Cheap Triptych Photography
4. The New and Improved Guide to Birdwatching Vol.2
Side B:
5. Ceremony by the Sea
6. The New and Improved Guide to Birdwatching Vol.3
7. The Sidewalk at Night -
Visit product page →For Lebanese indie label Ruptured's 25th release, influential British guitarist MIKE COOPER collaborates with HIFIKLUB, a French instrumental ensemble from Toulon, for an impressive musical reading of Robert J. Flaherty's silent film 'Man of Aran'.
Since 2007, French quartet Hifiklub has been building a protean work that evolves through an impressive series of collaborations. The band's catalog is wide and far-reaching, and includes more than 130 collaborations with such renowned musicians as Lee Ranaldo, Alain Johannes, Jad Fair, Fatso Jetson, R. Stevie Moore, Barre Phillips, Jean-Marc Montera, Kramer, Ikue Mori, Alan Licht, and Nels Cline.
Their most recent album, 'E Lisboa', consists of collaborations with experimental musicians from Portugal and was released in January 2019.For the past 50 years Mike Cooper has been an international musical explorer, performing and recording, solo and in a number of inspired groupings and a variety of genres.
Initially a folk-blues guitarist and singer songwriter, his work has diversified to include improvised and electronic music, live music for silent films, radio art and sound installations. He is also a music journalist, writing features for magazines, particularly on Pacific music and musicians, a visual artist, film and video maker, collector of Hawaiian shirts and appears on more than 70 records to date.
In 2017, Hifiklub got in touch with Mike Cooper to record (and eventually perform) a live soundtrack to controversial filmmaker Robert J. Flaherty's silent movie 'Man of Aran'. Flaherty was an American filmmaker who directed and produced the first commercially successful feature-length documentary film, 'Nanook of the North', in 1922.
Following the success of this film, he continued the development of this new genre of narrative documentary with 'Moana' (1926), set in the South Seas, and 'Man of Aran' (1934), filmed in Ireland's Aran Islands. Flaherty is considered the "father" of both the documentary and the ethnographic film.
When devising the lyrics for his performance, Cooper dug into Irish writer John Millington Synge's book 'The Aran Islands', published in 1907. This book provided the initial inspiration for Flaherty's film. Cooper cut up texts from the book and sang them for the record, while relying on a different set of texts from the same source, for the live performance.
It was Cooper who contacted Lebanese indie label Ruptured for the release of the album; no stranger to the Lebanese experimental scene and its various key players, Cooper has already recorded 2 albums in Beirut, 'Radio Paradise' and 'Light On A Wall', released by Lebanese label Johnny Kafta's Kids Menu and Italian label Backwards, respectively.'Aran Stories' is released in a limited edition of 400 copies. -
Interbellum is the musical project of Lebanese singer-songwriter Karl Mattar. Formed in 2015, the project sees him working alongside multi-instrumentalist and producer Fadi Tabbal and other musicians from the Beirut music scene.Visit product page →
Prior to the creation of Interbellum, Mattar released folk albums under the moniker Charlie Rayne. 2014's Wider Waters saw him move to Berlin and embark on a 40-date tour in Europe, before returning to Beirut to launch Interbellum. Both projects were showcased at Wickerpark Festival, the leading indie festival in the Middle East. Interbellum's debut Now Try Coughing featured lo-fi guitar-driven songs recorded live to cassette. It was recorded and self-released in 2016.
Dead Pets, Old Griefs is the band's second full-length album, and expands the band's palette considerably, adding synthesizers, samples and electronics to the mix. The album features 10 songs that revolve around themes of memory, time, childhood, and loss.
Apocalyptic imagery - real, imagined and figurative - permeates the album, and the instrumentation follows suit, warping, distorting and folding in on itself. The record plays like a broken music box, its kaleidoscopic melodic songs disjointed and smeared by noise, dissonance and processed sounds.
Recorded in Tabbal's Tunefork Studios over a period of several months, Dead Pets, Old Griefs features contributions from Marwan Tohme, Julia Sabra and Pascal Semerdjian from dream-pop quartet Postcards, and Camille Cabbabé from post-rock ensemble KOZO.
The album is released by Lebanese indie label Ruptured in a limited edition of 300 CD's.
Tracklisting:
1. Distortion
2. Another Day
3. First Light
4. It's All Over
5. Ready to Dissolve
6. Ink
7. PQRST
8. For Air
9. Some Ghosts
10. Weight of Winter
Release Date: 05/10/2018 -
Sold outVisit product page →The first release from Lebanese classically-trained pianist Joanna Andraos, Khimaira merges classical influences with modern, computer-generated sound constructions.
The end result is reminiscent of Brian Eno's Ambient Music series, tempered with a Middle Eastern edge and spiked with wandering electronics, courtesy of Jawad Nawfal (Munma).
Tracklisting:
1. Sine Die
2. Abyss
3. Chorouq
4. Post Erratum Culpa
5. Nout
6. Abyss (Aequo Remix) -
Visit product page →Snakeskin is an album of visionary electronic dream pop, shapeshifting above ambient and industrial undercurrents. It is moody, unsettling, luminous – the culmination of a decade of collaboration and friendship between Lebanese producer/musician/ engineer Fadi Tabbal and singer-songwriter Julia Sabra from Beirut-based indie trio Postcards.
The duo began working on Snakeskin in the aftermath of the August 2020 Beirut port explosion, which killed at least 218 people, injured 7,000, and left over 300,000 people homeless. Indeed, Julia's home was destroyed by the explosion and her partner and bandmate Pascal badly injured. The first song that they wrote together afterwards was 'Roots', which closes out the album and was composed for the Ruptured-curated series The Drone Sessions in the fall of 2020.Snakeskin utilizes 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 album seamlessly incorporates the melancholy electro-pop of 'All The Birds', the quiet menace of 'In Our Garden' (long-lost treasures, ancient lies / another buried paradise), and the beat-driven 'Signs'.
The title track sums up their frame of mind, beginning as a lullaby and evolving into a glittering tapestry of distortion and feedback. As the artists write, Snakeskin is a product of "the disappearance of life as we know it, and with it the decay of nature and living creatures. There is no rebirth, no renewal. It’s about what it means to feel at home in such a place."
Some tracks were also inspired by events happening in the surrounding region, such as the invasion of Armenia by Azerbaijan and the Palestinian uprising of May 2021 (Sheikh Jarrah) - both events shedding light on relationships to home and land across the wider region.
That such compelling art can emerge from unceasing tragedy may be the ultimate testament to human resilience and the pursuit of freedom and justice.
Tracklisting:
Side A
1. Still Life
2. All The Birds
3. Snakeskin
4. Past Tense
5. In Our Garden
Side B:
6. One By One
7. Signs
8. Roots -
Limited run of 250 physical copies of the album.Visit product page →
Kid Fourteen is the solo project of Khodor Ellaik, a punk musician born and bred in Beirut with a range of influences that includes Joe The Clash, Alan Vega, and more recently Sleaford Mods and Alex Huang from Dirty Beaches. Between 2010 and 2014, Ellaik was the frontman of Beirut Scum Society and short-lived post-punk/no-wave outfit Friendly Faces.
Both bands split in acrimonious circumstances. Ellaik adopted a solo aesthetic using a small assortment of synthesizers and drum machines, in order to shape what became Kid Fourteen's trademark sound, an impressive blend of punk sensibilities and noise-pop elements.
He has performed in several European festivals, including 'Incubate' in Holland and 'Waveteef' in Belgium. Back home in Beirut, he has organized successful concerts for prominent international bands such as Xiu Xiu and Dirty Beaches.Kid Fourteen's debut album 'Dream Kids Never Sleep' was self-released digitally in June 2016.
Tracklisting:
1. The Dancer
2. Fast Times In The Pleasure Land
3. It's A Lovely Night
4. Whirlwind Blues
5. Find Your Lover
6. The City Ways, The City Weighs
7. I Get Around All Day
8. Humphrey, It's A Pleasure Principle
9. I Wonder If My Father
10. Whirlwind Blues (Xiu Xiu Remix) -
(Both formats limited to 300 copies) - Kinematik is an instrumental rock band from Lebanon, whose music blends elements of 70's psychedelia, progressive rock and post-rock. It was formed in the winter of 2014 by Anthony Sahyoun (guitars) and Rudy Ghafari (keyboards) as a rock/electronic project with no incentive to perform but only to compose music.Visit product page →
By the summer of 2014 the duo had evolved into a 5-piece band with the addition of Akram Hajj, Roy Khazen and Gerard Rechdan in the rhythm section. Rechdan left the band in the winter of 2015. Kinematik's rock sound is both diligent and intuitional, ranging from raucous improvisational psychedelic rock to steady and mechanical electronic grooves, with frequent post-rock climaxes.
Immediate points of comparison include Explosions in the Sky and Loop, as well as Can (for the tendency towards Motorik beats) and Tortoise (for the intricacies of their layered compositions).
Kinematik composes instrumental pieces that feature dynamic contrast, strong melodic lines, a heavy use of distortion and effects, and some reliance on electronics and synthezisers.
Their audio-visual performances have earned them a solid reputation and massive local following over the years, both on account of the musicians'vibrant stage presence and Cynthia Jesse Osbornel-Hasbani's original animations and live veejaying.
Following a series of live performances all over Lebanon, the band started collaborating with renowned Lebanese producer Fadi Tabbal from Tunefork Studios (Postcards, Bunny Tylers, Safar, Filter Happier, etc.), who produced their debut LP ALA'.
In order to preserve the raw and vital feel of Kinematik's live performances, the album was recorded on reel to reel tape, a recording process that has not occurred in Lebanon for the last decade.
Tracklisting:
Side A:
1. Kelmeh Oula
2. Lalochezia
3. Hhx
4. Ana Baher
5. El'et
6. Aawaynet Nazar
Side B:
7. Kelmeh Oula
8. Lalochezia
9. Hhx
10. Ana Baher
11. El'et
12. Aawaynet Nazar -
Visit product page →Kinematik is a Lebanese post-rock ensemble hailing from the village of Reyfoun in the Lebanese mountains. Formed in the summer of 2014, Kinematik recorded its debut album Ala'in the spring of 2017, and released it later that same year with Lebanese indie label Ruptured.
This was followed later that year by a string of performances in Lebanon, as well as a number of European dates as part of a tour organized by Beirut & Beyond International Music Festival. Both Ala' and its follow-up Murur al Kiram were recorded and co-produced by Fadi Tabbal from renowned Lebanese recording studio Tunefork.
Murur Al-Kiram was released by Ruptured in the winter of 2020, in the early days of the bloody Lebanese uprising and the Covid-19 pandemic. Kinematik spent the best part of 2020 under lockdown, trying to come to grips with Lebanon's and the world's new realities, battling societal, economical and sanitary hurdles and obstacles.
In November 2020, upon receiving an invitation from Irtijal Festival in Beirut to perform in its 20th edition, the former trio evolved into a full-blown ensemble, comprising a total of 6 musicians - the core line-up of Anthony Sahyoun, Rudy Ghafari and Akram Hajj was joined by modular synth players Jad Atoui and Ziad Moukarzel, as well as drummer Teddy Tawil.
The Irtijal performance laid the roots for a series of recording sessions, that coalesced a few months later into the long-form, elaborate compositions that make up "Al Jadi", the band's third album - 4 slabs of brooding, elegiac post-rock, recorded and mixed by Fadi Tabbal, mastered by Harris Newman of Greymarket fame, and packaged in a superb sleeve courtesy of Studio Safar's head of design Hatem Imam.Tracklisting:
1. Dinosorat Tahtafil Bel Kuwaikeb (Asteroid!)
2. Afkar Aariya (Naked Ideals)
3. Al Jadi (Capricorn)
4. Wahdi Ana (Alone, I Am) -
Sold outMme Chandelier is the alter-ego of Anthony Sahyoun, guitar player extraordinaire with Lebanese post-rock quartet Kinematik. His first solo record is released by Lebanese imprint Ruptured as a limited edition of 250 copies.Visit product page →
Tracklisting:
1. B
2. Minimal Potato
3. Triangle
4. Limonade
5. Exodus
6. A -
Sold outVisit product page →Although this is his first CD release on the Lebanese market, Jawad Nawfal has been active on the local dance scene for a solid number of years, under a variety of guises (AEX, Ae_quo, etc.). '34 Days' is a set of 6 electro-ambient tracks, featuring minimal beats, ominous vocal samples, and a rich tapestry of interlocking, layered sounds.
The album was recorded during Israel's attacks on Lebanon in the summer of 2006, which explains to some extent the overall sombre and introspective mood of the tracks. At times, '34 Days' recalls the ethereal, hushed moods of Warp label artists such as Boards of Canada and Aphex Twin at his ambient best; with an oriental twist, added for good measure.
Tracklisting:
1. Yaqiin
2. Mind Over Matter (Arranged by Wajdi Elian)
3. 3cc
4. Qana (Arranged by Victor Bresse)
5. Munma
6. Judas -
Sold outVisit product page →Following an intense year performing live in Lebanon and abroad, Munma return to the studio in 2007 to deliver the 2nd volume of what is rumored to be a trilogy, hovering around the Lebanese-Israeli war of July 2006.
The band's familiar layers of synthesized sounds are augmented with a formidable array of processed bleeps and glitches, excerpts from radio speeches and political discourses, as well as expertly diverted samples of traditional Arabic instruments.
The only live electronics band of its kind in Lebanon has managed to deliver yet another haunting masterpiece, a record that seems to defy any possible categorization and labeling, posed somewhere between ambient soundscapes, moody electronica, and weary world music
Tracklisting:
1. Pluie d'Été
2. Finem Respice
3. Ambidextre
4. Dark Water
5. IRM
6. Open Source -
Visit product page →Munma grew out of the aftermath of Israel's 2006 bombardment of Lebanon when Nawfal decided to explore traditional Arabic harmonies and rhythms within a cutting-edge electro aesthetic.
The resulting albums combine a dark and often unsettling tone with a fragile beauty. "Previews and Premises" is no exception. Somewhat gentler than the accompanying live performance, Nawfal's latest album leaves room for reflection amid the unabashed beats and makes use of an intriguing array of samples.
The Arabic connection, for instance, is easier to discern in the recorded version. Amid the Doppler-effect drones and elastic bass tones of "Motion Sickness," it is possible to discern a lamenting voice. The opening number, "Soft Integration," positions a tremulous flute over a science-fiction array of bleeps and burps.
As in previous albums, Nawfal uses snatches of recorded speech. On "The Alchemist," an extended diatribe on musical aesthetics from a crisp-voiced gentleman is woven in and out of a prowling, moody beat and glitch-dominated electronic tones. There is still plenty of music for dancing to on the disc. "Ear Damage" combines a propulsive, punchy beat with drifting curtains of sound. "The Alchemist" uses a concatenation of beats that almost brings to mind the catchiness of last summer's German breakout act, Moderat.
"Previews and Premises," is a compilation of Nawfal's work from the past four years. "Some of it was meant to appear on previous Munma releases," Nawfal explains in the sleeve notes, "but eventually kept aside for later inclusion." Perhaps made with a little less urgency than previous EPs,
"Previews and Premises" is nonetheless an absorbing listen, showcasing the range of Nawfal's vision. From the spacey dance tunes of "Bits and Dust" and "Explorer" to the eccentric electro of "Attention Disorder," "Previews and Premises" signals a notable talent in full command of his material. The Daily Star
Tracklisting:
1 Soft Integration
2 The Alchemist
3 Motion Sickness
4 Ear Damage
5 Explorer
6 Attention Disorder
7 It Came From Under The Sea
8 Bits And Dust -
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Jawad Nawfal is a pioneer of Lebanon's electronic/dance scene. Starting out as a DJ and event promoter in the late 90's, he eventually moved on to production and composition in the early 2000's, forming live electronic duos Ae_Quo and AEX with Lebanese musician Victor Bresse.
Nawfal created MUNMA in the aftermath of Israel's war on Lebanon in the summer of 2006 -- this solo project explores oriental harmonies and rhythmical patterns, with a strong reliance on sampled traditional musical beds, excerpts from politicians'speeches and radio broadcasts. In 2012, Jawad started working with Lebanese writer and slam poet Mazen el-Sayed aka 'El Rass', and the two musicians released two albums which explore the darker sides of rap, and display strong electronica and dubstep influences.
In the following years, Nawfal collaborated with Belgian electronic producer Cedrik Fermont, and released 3 albums on his label Syrphe Records with different contributors.
THREE VOICES is the first vinyl release from Munma, and the second vinyl release from Lebanese alternative label Ruptured (following RadioKVM's Issrar'in 2014). Munma's new album is marked by several vocal collaborations, a departure in style for this pioneer of Beirut's electronic scene. As such, the vocal element was always present in the music of Munma, whether through radio broadcasts, samples of political speeches, recordings of musicians'voices and the like, but he had never actually used the human voice as an intrinsic element in his compositions.
Following his successful collaboration with rapper El Rass and other hip-hop artists from Beirut and the neighboring area (including Touffar, El Far3i and Boikutt, among others), Jawad Nawfal became drawn towards the capabilities of the human voice, more specifically the reciting of poetry by a human voice, and began to integrate this element in his music process.
He called on various writers, mostly female ones, to write personal texts and recite them in spoken-word form in the studio. He then proceeded to build specific music beds around these voice recordings and recitations.
The resulting album is Three Voices', a fully collaborative yet vastly personal album of electronic treatments and human narration.
Tracklisting:
1. ðole
2. Muse
3. Three voices
4. Chien fou
5. Solstice 2
6. Cadavre exquis
7. Rêve éveil
8. L'arbre.
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