Over 30 labels are uniting to raise funds for the 1.5 million people now forcibly displaced in Lebanon. With Bandcamp Friday today, now’s your chance to maximize album purchases for that effort. Here are the details — and a few music selections to consider.
Fundraising effort and background
Israeli attacks and occupation continue to drive people from their homes, and despite the so-called “ceasefire,” that includes ongoing domicide and ecocide, with systematic destruction of entire villages and the natural resources around them. The situation is getting worse, yet just when more attention and support is needed most, it’s instead waning. (Shawn Reynaldo laments the music world’s neglect of Lebanon just as western music consumers treat the southwest Asian region as a tourist destination; see his column this week.)
Let’s let our friend Julia Sabra of Tunefork Studios (aka Snakeskin) explain:
Speaking as a US citizen writing from Germany to a largely Western and US audience, we are directly complicit as our countries supply the diplomatic cover, weapons, and infrastructure used in that violence. So it’s great to see the support for Beit Aam, a grassroots, Lebanese-run community and arts organization. Unlike larger NGOs, effectively all of your resources translate directly into aid — and that serves all displaced people, including marginalized groups that go neglected by other organizations and institutions. The tragic side of this is that the volunteer, grassroots infrastructure in Beirut has become so effective because they’ve been organizing since 2024 (and in many cases, back to the port blast).
From the organizers (including Lewis Robinson of Mais Um and Duncan Ballantyne:
[Beit Am] are also a relief hub for those displaced in times of war. In Beirut, they run a public kitchen that serves hundreds of meals. They accept and allocate in-kind donations. Have a look at this Instagram post to see the kind of assistance Beit Aam are providing with donations including special humanitarian packs for those displaced which includes toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap, wet wipes, tissues & pads, 2 pairs of socks, 3 pairs of underwear, fabric detergents, bandages, panadol and trash bags. Beit Aam have also released their March report on Instagram highlighting where they have spent recent donations.
Visit Beit Aam’s Instagram page and you can read in English further info here.
The labels
Labels have pledged to give their full label share (retaining support for the artists), through this whole weekend.
| Participating labels: Airfono (FR) // Bandcamp Agogo Records (DE) // Bandcamp Akuphone (FR) // Bandcamp Avon Terror Corps (UK) // Bandcamp Awesome Tapes from Africa (US) // Bandcamp Beacon Sound (US) // Bandcamp Bongo Joe (CH) // Bandcamp Constellation (CA) // Bandcamp Desmonta (BR) // Bandcamp Discrepant (UK) // Bandcamp Do You Have Peace? (UK) // Bandcamp Full Time Hobby (UK) // Bandcamp Glitterbeat (DE) // Bandcamp Habibi Funk (DE) // Bandcamp Hassle Records (UK) // Bandcamp Heavenly Sweetness (FR) // Bandcamp Hive Mind (UK) // Bandcamp Honest Jon’s (UK) // Bandcamp Jarring Effects (FR) // Bandcamp Kabul Fire (DE) // Bandcamp Lovemonk (ES) // Bandcamp Mais Um (UK) // Bandcamp Makkum (NL) // Bandcamp Mississippi Records (US) // Bandcamp Moli Del Tro (FR) // Bandcamp Morphine (DE) // Bandcamp Mr Bongo (UK) // Bandcamp NO FORMAT! (FR) // Bandcamp Other People (US) // Bandcamp Principe (PT) // Bandcamp Rebel Up (BE) // Bandcamp Simsara Records (UK) // Bandcamp Six of Swords (UK) // Bandcamp Strut (UK) // Bandcamp Tak:til (DE) // Bandcamp Wonderwheel (US) // Bandcamp |
Some music selections
Without playing favorites with all these great labels that have contributed, I do want to highlight some particular favorites.
Ata Kak, the legend from Ghana, has something indescribably wonderful that came out last year. It’s just rich, layered songwriting by any measure and a nice intro to Awesome Tapes from Africa.
When Jakarta and Lebanon come together, it just feels like a soul uniting. There’s the latest from Habibi Funk, and if you like this kind of digging, you should also go check out Lebanon’s own Roland Ragi (see his mix of Armenian treasures this week for Radio Alhara). Follow his new (restored) Instagram account.
Morphine Records is the beacon of the experimental scene as it connects between Berlin and Beirut, and Raed Yassin’s Phantom Orchestra is an epic instrumental project with a who’s who of players, as a starting point. It seems they even still have some vinyl.
I can’t pick just one from Nicholas Jaar’s Other People, so here are three that you absolutely need to hear:
Cinna Peyghamy reaches levels of musicianship with both Persian tombak and modular synths that — you can quote us on this — have prompted more than one person I know to declare “I guess I’ll just quit music now” after a set. In a good way! (Hey, you need that kind of motivation now and then.) So if you were sitting on a release, maybe you should get it out before June 5. Me, I’m just going to plan a nice bottle of wine and some friends to enjoy that. Why not buy it now and support Beit Am?
Alejandra Cardenas’ (Ale Hop) A Body Like a Home is a deep, heartwrenchingly honest collaborative journey through trauma that finds fiery redemption. It is the kind of anticolonial chronicle we urgently need. Seeing Alejandra play it live was one of the most moving moments I think I’ve had musically in Berlin. As she puts it, “It’s not a straight story or a resolution. Writing and composing became a ritual of digging for meaning, into what’s buried, disguised, or renamed, until the body itself became a living archive.”
Sary Moussa I’ve written about before — Wind, Again is the kind of compositional achievement we should be celebrating now, not waiting until people work out later what a milestone it was. It recalls that moment, late at night, when memory becomes a breakthrough, when you feel something so deeply you can finally let go. “I Will Never Write a Song About You,” the very first cut, could reduce you to tears without even knowing why.
And it’s also a snapshot of Beirut and Tunefork Studios: Julia Sabra, Paed Conca, Abed Kobeissi, Fadi Tabbal, and Pascal Semerdjian join for the album. I don’t know how you can hear that it was recorded in Beirut, but you can. That coming together of players is absolutely the city and the country at their best — and all the more reason the rest of us need to pull together for them now.
Speaking of which, let’s again plug Tunefork’s own compilation, which, since I’ve written about it, has continuously raised more funds:
Here’s their update from a month ago. I hope we can pick up the tempo again.
And my plea is this: to those still silent, it’s not too late. Please. I’m not going this to shout from the wilderness; I hope others will join. Thanks for spreading the word.