Sonic Juxtaposition
© A night in Beirut- Tamara Saade
The unending trials of finding a better god
At the concert, working-class folk rush, but collectively they look stagnant. The pressure of constant friction has put them in progressive stasis, orbiting a light. In the hadra of the Mouath’en, working-class women and working-class men extend their limbs in hopes of catching most of the light.
From the bottom of a reactor
The city was calm on that Sunday afternoon. There was a midday offensive at the Southern border, the casual type mind you. They were showing families going up the hills overlooking the battlefields; perhaps in an act of defiance, perhaps only to watch the fireworks. They say that if you hear the sound of an approaching missile, then it has already hit the target. All you’re left with in your remaining moments of deduction is how close you are to it.
Amorphous arab
Can one pursue the past through reimagining the present? Veteran musician Yacoub Abu Ghosh and sound experimentalist Rehab Hazgui talk to Norient about merging tradition with recent techniques at the Mirath:Music Sound Exhibition, a project by the Goethe-Institut.
Trouble in deep slumber: Liliane Chlela rattles the cage
There’s no stage in the city that Liliane hasn’t performed on. Throughout the years, she has scaled and built her own version of home. On a dimly-lit stage in Mar Mikhael, a few hundred meters away from an ammonium-ridden destiny, she sat shoulder to shoulder with ingenious jazz composer Tarek Yamani. Amidst her simple time-tested setup, she engineered a sonic conversation of rhythm and resonance.
Between hunger and famine: From the scene with El Rass & Ziad Nawfal
To all those who have written and still write about how Beirut is the city of contradictions, it’s time to realize that the city is, in fact, a land of contradicting realities. These realities overlap, create, and destroy each other almost viciously. So perhaps in apocalyptic times like these, it could be helpful to ask ourselves which reality we are subscribing to, and which are we succumbing to.
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The Making of
KOAST: Unfiltered, Unhindered, and Heading South
Flowing down the stream, KOAST picks up her inspirations and experiences along the way, they become part of her making, and she weaves them into new forms of expression. While breaking through an eclectic range of genres and styles, she can be found singing English lyrics in Arabic scales, or Arabic lyrics on Afro-beat. For KOAST, this amalgamation of sounds and inspirations comes as an organic pursuit of self-indulgence.
Hearing Out a Window
The city is loud again. Sirens and honks as a backdrop of an erratic soundscape. Chatter, chatter, chatter – pedestrians trying to make sense of blurred phone conversations. A colloquial cacophony. Motorbikes whizz in a hurry, always in a hurry, a dwindling solo, loud cooling systems on the rhythm section. Everyone seems to be agitated – especially the steel box drivers. Busy, busy beggars, catcalling the brick walls to get their voices back.