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Ruptured

  • Youmna Saba 'WISHAH' Vinyl LP

    Ruptured

    Youmna Saba 'WISHAH' Vinyl LP

    £26.99

    v

    Ruptured

    Youmna Saba 'WISHAH' Vinyl LP

    £26.99

    Latest album by Lebanese experimental folk singer/songwriter Youmna Saba. A collaboration between Ruptured in Lebanon and Touch in the UK.- "Wishah" (meaning veil in Arabic) is a composition in five stages, written by Youmna Saba between 2021 and 2022, for voice, oud and electronics.

    Following her previous solo works "Njoum" (2014) and "Arb’een" (40) (2017), this album marks a significant turning point in Saba's journey. Created after leaving Beirut and settling in Paris, "Wishah" reveals a profound shift in her musical expression, informed by rigorous research in the sonic properties of sung Arabic phonemes and their role in shaping synthesised electronic sounds. The album employs a digital extension for the oud, a concept developed by Saba in her research project 'Taïma’.

    This device enhances the oud's sonic range, seamlessly integrating synthesised electronics. It also amplifies subtle, often overlooked sounds generated during playing, such as resonances and fingerboard friction. The composition is organized into five distinct stages, each contributing to a process of gradual revelation. As the tracks unfold, they strip away layers of constructed emotions and perceptions that have been intricately woven over time, to expose a space that no longer exists. Wishah is a farewell to home. Youmna Saba (born in Beirut, 1984) is a musician, composer and musicologist.

    Her current research focuses on instrument and space resonances in different sonic and musical contexts. With four albums to this date, she has collaborated with musicians of different musical expressions such as Kamilya Jubran, Floy Krouchi, Mike Cooper and the Neue Vocalsolisten ensemble, and has taken part in numerous artist residencies.

    She is the laureate of the first sound residency at Quai Branly Museum, Paris (2022-2023) with her research project and installation “La Réserve des Non-Dits”, now on view at the museum; and a laureate of the music residency program at the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris (2020-2021). 

    Tracklisting: 
    1. Akaleel
    2. Ba'oud
    3. Al khayal
    4. Ahad
    5. Tareeq

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  • Mayssa Jallad 'Marjaa: The Battle Of The Hotels' Vinyl LP

    Ruptured / Six of Swords

    Mayssa Jallad 'Marjaa: The Battle Of The Hotels' Vinyl LP

    £23.99

    “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.

    The album 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.

    Limited edition of 300 copies. 140gsm vinyl pressed at Microforum (Canada).
    Jacket printed on 20pt board with aqueous gloss coating, with a 3.5mm spine and a black paper inner dust sleeve.

    Tracklisting:
    1. Etel
    2. Kharita
    3. Baynana
    4. Mudun
    5. Haigazian (October 22)
    6. Burj Al Murr (October 25 to 27)
    7. Markaz Azraq (December 6)
    8. Markaz Ahmar (December 6 suite)
    9. Al Hisar (December 8)
    10. Holiday Inn (January to March)
    11. Holiday Inn (March 21 to 29)
    12. Al Irth
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  • Julia Sabra and Fadi Tabbal 'Snakeskin'

    Ruptured

    Julia Sabra and Fadi Tabbal 'Snakeskin'

    £21.99

    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

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  • El Rass & Munma - Kachf el Mahjoub / Unveiling the Hidden [10th Anniversary Reissue] Vinyl LP

    Ruptured

    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.

    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]
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  • Kinematik 'Ensemble 1: Al Jadi' Vinyl LP

    Ruptured

    Kinematik 'Ensemble 1: Al Jadi' Vinyl LP

    £28.49

    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)

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  • Fadi Tabbal 'Subject To Potential Errors And Distortions' Vinyl

    Ruptured

    Fadi Tabbal 'Subject To Potential Errors And Distortions' Vinyl

    £19.99

    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.

    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
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  • Kinematik 'Murur al-Kiram' Vinyl LP

    Ruptured / Beacon Sound

    Kinematik 'Murur al-Kiram' Vinyl LP

    £25.49

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    Ruptured / Beacon Sound

    Kinematik 'Murur al-Kiram' Vinyl LP

    £25.49

    Murur Al-Kiram marks a departure from Ala', both sonically and musically. Mixing the pastoral and the industrial, the record relies on techno-based percussion beats, nostalgic melodies, intricate double drum interplay and ambient soundscapes, deconstructed and reconstructed time and time again.

    The tracks are subtle in their angst as well as their joy, celebrating small victories in face of great defeats and echoing the band's conflicted mindset towards life in their country and community.  The record was recorded over a period of two months, and features Teddy Tawil (aka TEDTEDTED) joining the band as second drummer.

    Whereas Ala'saw Kinematik's four core musicians confining themselves to one instrument and/or role within the overall sonic construct of the band, these new compositions see each musician playing and equally at ease with several instruments, adding intensity, cohesiveness and a sense of fluidity to the proceedings.

    The intent was to make a record that would sound like a single travelling shot, beginning with the musicians'childhood in their hometown, to their enduring the horrendously corrupt state of political affairs Lebanon finds itself in today, until they are buried back in their place of birth; realizing in the process how slight and remote Lebanon is, as a country; and how little they, as individuals and a community, are. 

    To some extent, Kinematik have consistently felt like aliens in the midst of Lebanon's contemporary music scene, and this statement holds true for a large segment of the country's alternative scene nowadays.

    With recent civil rights campaigns, counterfeit elections and dire social conditions, the sense of existential dread has intensified and the question of 'what the hell are we doing?' that generally occurs at the time of recording took on a more general dimension, as in is there a purpose for trying to accomplish anything at all in Lebanon today, whether artistic or otherwise? In the end, it was the salutary presence of Sary (the newborn son of synth player Rudy Ghafari) that became the 'raison d'être' of the record.

    Murur Al-Kiram is the story of an important chapter in the band's history, one marked by uncertainty and hesitation, yet solid and vibrant in spite of the latter.

    Tracklisting:
    1. Murur Al-Kiram
    2. Hikayat Atfal
    3. Sahu
    4. Bein Mreytein
    5. La Min Shef Wala Min Dere
    6. Hayet Bi Kel Nafas
    7. Al-Qulub Al-Mughallafa Bet-Turab La Tankaser
    8. 'Elbe Msattaha
    9. ...W Kaza
    10. Muhibbi Al-Kanari
    11. Roza

    Release Date: 28/02/2020
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  • HIFIKLUB & Mike Cooper 'Aran Stories'

    Ruptured

    HIFIKLUB & Mike Cooper 'Aran Stories'

    £7.99

    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.

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  • Interbellum 'Dead Pets, Old Griefs' CD

    Ruptured

    Interbellum 'Dead Pets, Old Griefs' CD

    £7.99

    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.

    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
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  • Postcards 'I'll Be Here In The Morning' - Cargo Records UK

    Ruptured

    Postcards 'I'll Be Here In The Morning'

    £7.99

    Postcards is a dream pop/indie rock band formed in Beirut (Lebanon) by four friends in the summer of 2012. After a series of EPs, they will be releasing their first full-length album on the 26th of January 2018, teaming up once again with producer Fadi Tabbal of Tunefork Studios.

    I'll be here in the morning'is defined by hushed, introspective vocals floating over expansive sonic spaces that shift between harsh noise and dreamy soundscapes. The constant oscillation between the opposite states of mind that the band deals with in Lebanon runs deep within the album both musically and lyrically. The music alternates between repeated cycles of calm and unrest, anger and surrender, simplicity and intricacy as Julia Sabra - the band's singer and lyricist - tackles this recurrent theme of duality.

    The songs see her struggle with feelings of sadness, indifference, deception, femininity and empowerment. The end result is the most sincere and personal project the quartet has produced so far. Since 2013, Postcards have released three well-received EPs (Lakehouse in 2013, What Lies So Still in 2015, and Here Before in 2017) and have been regularly touring Europe, the UK and the Middle East. They also opened for Beirut (2014) and Angus and Julia Stone (2015).

    'A patient album of understated beauty - thoughtful and deliberate' PROJECT REVOLVER LEBANON

    'None of the tracks is simply a gap-filler ( - ¦) The songs constantly surprise the audience and charm them from the first listen.' LIE IN THE SOUND GERMANY

    'The feelings Postcards project live are a true representation of life here, a city of youth, love and life, with an underlying, unspoken sense of dejection and gloom ' GET OUT BLOG LEBANON

    'La voix aerienne et onirique de Julia Sabra, d'une sensibilite extreme, donne la chair de poule. Un album prometteur que nous attendons avec impatience' L'OFFICIEL LEVANT LEBANON

    'One can let oneself be absorbed in Postcards and let oneself go into meditativeness or follow the well-made melodic and rhythmic subtleties ofthe music.' KULTUR PEGEL GERMANY

    Tracklisting:
    1. Open Waters
    2. Bright Lights
    3. Before We Sleep
    4. A Broken Record
    5. Wrinkles
    6. Waves
    7. Flying Saucers
    8. Revolvers
    9. Wide Awake
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  • The Bunny Tylers 'Chance Meetings' - Cargo Records UK

    Ruptured

    The Bunny Tylers 'Chance Meetings'

    £7.99

    The Bunny Tylers is a duo from Lebanon whose core consists of two prominent musicians from the Beirut scene: singer-songwriter and guitarist Charbel Haber (Scrambled Eggs, Malayeen, Johnny Kafta's Anti-Vegetarian Orchestra) and multi-instrumentalist and producer Fadi Tabbal (The Incompetents, Under the Carpet, Safar).

    The group is a natural amalgamation of the prolific career of the two long-time collaborators, fusing Haber's songwriting sensibility with Tabbal's technical and instrumental know-how and tying musical loose ends from both musicians'past work.

    Initially formed to score Nadim Tabet and Karine Wehbe's video essay 'Summer '91', they continued working in film scoring, art installations and their own releases.

    Their 2nd album 'Chance Meetings', recorded with the help of Benoit de Villeneuve in Paris, sets Haber's bleak songs and sorrowful voice against a backdrop of beats and textures spawned from the pair's post-punk, ambient and drone roots.

    The result is a drug-hazy polaroid of murder mysteries and misspent youth, the last remnants of a Film Noir set in abandoned Lebanese coastal resorts.

    The album is due for release in January 2018 by Lebanese label Ruptured and Cargo Records.



    Tracklisting:
    1. While We Danced I Dreamt Of Being A Serial Killer
    2. One Of These Days
    3. I'll Make It Up To You
    4. A Sunset Is Another Sunrise
    5. Imaginary Song
    6. Hello Your Grace
    7. Junkie Hideout In Suburbia
    8. Ete 91
    9. Fish Die In Millions
    10. It Seems It All Disappears
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  • Kinematik 'Ala' - Cargo Records UK

    Ruptured

    Kinematik 'Ala'

    £7.99

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    Ruptured

    Kinematik 'Ala'

    £7.99

    (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.

    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
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  • Safar 'In Transit' - Cargo Records UK

    Ruptured

    Safar 'In Transit'

    £5.49

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    Ruptured

    Safar 'In Transit'

    £5.49

    Safar is a Lebanese duo founded in 2013 by Mayssa Jallad (vocals, various percussion) and Elie Abdelnour (acoustic and electric guitars, bass). They are furthermore accompanied by their producer Fadi Tabbal on electric guitar, synthesizers and beats during live performances.

    Safar's music consists of a very personal take on American and British psychedelic folk, infused with modern pop and rock references, as well as subtle references to the Lebanese golden age of 60's surf.

    The band possesses a strong and widespread following in Lebanon, gathered over the years thanks to a number of intimate performances marked by singer Jallad's emotional vocal delivery and Abdelnour's intricate guitar work.

    "In Transit", a compilation of their first three EPs "23 Kilograms", "Carry-On" and "Gate 03", was released by Lebanese independent label Ruptured in December 2016 in a limited edition of 300 copies.

    Tracklisting:
    1. Overlove
    2. 23 Kilograms
    3. Olive Oil Soul
    4. Between The Trees
    5. Cake
    6. Seasons
    7. Wa Namshi
    8. Paper Planes
    9. No Service
    10. It's You
    11. The Greatest Fear
    12. Kayfa A3oud
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  • Fadi Tabbal 'How's Annie' - Cargo Records UK

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    Fadi Tabbal 'How's Annie'

    £5.49

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    Ruptured

    Fadi Tabbal 'How's Annie'

    £5.49

    Limited edition of 250 copies.

    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
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  • Mme Chandelier 'Post-Coital Tristesse' - Cargo Records UK

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    Mme Chandelier 'Post-Coital Tristesse'

    £5.49

    Mme 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.

    Tracklisting:
    1. B
    2. Minimal Potato
    3. Triangle
    4. Limonade
    5. Exodus
    6. A
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  • Kid Fourteen 'Dream Kids Never Sleep' - Cargo Records UK

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    Kid Fourteen 'Dream Kids Never Sleep'

    £5.49

    Limited run of 250 physical copies of the album.

    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)
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  • Munma 'Three Voices' - Cargo Records UK

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    Munma 'Three Voices' Vinyl LP

    £19.99

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    Ruptured

    Munma 'Three Voices' Vinyl LP

    £19.99



    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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  • El Rass & Munma 'Adam, Darwin and the Penguin' - Cargo Records UK

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    El Rass & Munma 'Adam, Darwin and the Penguin'

    £7.99

    The city of Tripoli is, to a certain extent, shrouded in media-fabricated illusion. Whenever it's on the news, it's often bad news: from the ongoing armed clashes between supporters and detractors of the Syrian Revolution, to unspeakable acts such as the of a library carrying various rare and precious works. Despite this, the city's inhabitants know what life in the city is like first-hand and have their own unique perceptions and memories of Tripoli. Such is the case with Mazen El Sayed, 29, better known by his stage name, El Rass.

    El Sayed is an Arabic MC who currently resides in Beirut but hails from the northern port city of Tripoli. His music is typically characterized by highly opinionated, thought-provoking lyrics dealing with everything from politics to society, philosophy and religion, recited over experimental beats. The sound is something more akin to alternative electronica than to standard hip hop. Topics have ranged from critiquing Orientalism, in the track (Orientalism), to the taboo subject of a woman's honor, in the track (In Your Honor), to singing the praises of the penguin metaphorically, in the track (The Penguin). One subject which often recurs in El Sayed's work is his hometown of Tripoli, which serves as the topic of his latest music video for (From the Planet Fayhaa). In it, he discusses Tripoli as he sees it, and praises all those who are able to see it their own way.

    He states in the song: 'This song's for the people of the city abroad. Smiling faces, sad hearts abroad. This song's for all those whose life is difficult. Who were able to go beyond the walls of the box. This song's for those hanging out, chilling. With or without religion.' At the time of El Sayed's upbringing, Tripoli was under Syrian occupation: it was a city suppressed, inhibited, and in the MC's own words 'gloomy'. But perhaps the state the city was in only served to encourage curiosity and defiance in El Sayed, who recalls: 'We wanted to live the city in a way that was different than the way we were expected to live it.' When it comes to his rhymes, El Sayed remarks, 'to me, the act of writing is an explosion." El Sayed does not regard Tripoli as a purely political, social or religious object, instead, he describes it as a multi-dimensional entity, not unlike a person: 'It's like you're talking about somebody you truly love, but see in them all their different sides, those you might love and those you might hate; depending on the moment, depending on the emotion that was born as a reason to write at that moment, you're gonna go in different directions,' explains El Sayed. Case in point, the tracks Fi Qal'at Tarablus (In the Citadel of Tripoli) and Min Kawkab Al Fayhaa (From the Planet Fayhaa). In Fi Qal'at Tarablus, El Sayed tackles the social, political, and religious facets of Tripoli with tones of anger and frustration, personifying these issues as a literal beast that inhabits the famed Citadel of Tripoli. On the other end of the spectrum, Min Kawkab Al Fayhaa sees him taking a more personal laid-back approach, relating the experiences of a day spent out and about in the city.

    Despite his music's relevance to Tripoli, El Sayed does not have as great a following in the city itself as that of his Beirut audience. He attributes this to two things: a lack of venues in Tripoli and not enough openness to different kinds of music. El Sayed feels the tides are turning: "a segment of the youth have recently liberated themselves, choosing to engage more with reality, be active, do things. When they took that step, they found me." Another factor that may have contributed to the popularity of El Sayed's music in Lebanon as a whole might be his even greater popularity in neighboring Arab countries such as Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan and Syria. 'We have a mentality, sadly, that when you prove yourself outside, people start getting curious about you inside,' comments the MC.

    Despite his ever-growing popularity, locally, regionally and abroad, El Sayed is not concerned with where he is most popular or how many fans he can win over, and still appreciates those who were with him on his musical journey since day one, which kicked off with the launch of his debut album Kachf El Mahjoub (Unveiling the Hidden) in 2012. 'The model in my head isn't to get to somewhere where a million people listen to [me]. I'm looking for core fans, people who really interact, who really think.' Beirut.com

    1. My Battle
    2. Storm in a Teacup
    3. Kashghara
    4. To an Idea
    5. Elevator Music
    6. In the Ice
    7. Return of the Penguin
    8. Octopus Arm
    9. We Will Not Return
    10. Sea
    11. Small Intestines
    12. Who's Afraid
    13. Breaking News
    14. Idol After Idol
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