In the face of darkness and horrors, we have to keep supporting music. It’s a reminder of the lives we’re fighting for — and a language for when even our mother tongue fails us. As Lebanon has experienced a Hell in 10 days, here is some music to last beyond the present reality.
I hope it can connect you as it’s connected me emotionally. I’ve always gotten into music from Beirut and Lebanon because it moved me. I desperately look forward to writing about it when there are not midnight Israeli evacuation orders and bombs falling and neighborhoods in flames. And there’s no way to bridge that gap, which I know many friends in the Lebanese diaspora feel with a far deeper sense of pain. All I can say is, I love you, I didn’t just come to play your city and leave you, and I’ll still be there when this is over. I know plenty of other people feel the same.
If you’re reading this on Bandcamp Friday, this is a good way to ensure all your investment goes to artists and labels.
Elyse Tabet who is helping lead relief with Beirut Synthesizer Center, is as always a must – enter the rich dream worlds of her release from earlier this year:
So is Fadi Tabbal, sampling all the extraordinary humans of his city, and speaking eloquently to the need for music here:
I’ve struggled with mental health issues for most of my life. Always affected by loneliness, by missed opportunities, by the violence of the city and the cruelty of some of its inhabitants, and unable to find solace except through composing music.
“I recognize you from my sketches” is an album of ten instrumental pieces, a breakup album between who we want to be and who we turned out to be.
You can check the entire catalog of VV-VA – “a home for elusive, left field, and heady electronic music,” blossomed out of side projects and b-sides into something extraordinary. Take “Reading” with Jawad and Jad:
My flat was destroyed in 2020’s Beirut explosion. The suburbs were a bittersweet retreat from the city drama, at least for a few months. Jad Atoui would visit sometimes and we would record music, jamming new ideas on modular synths. Here’s three selected edits. – Jawad Nawfal
Thanks to Roland Ragi for reminding me of Balcoon Music’s “Beirut & Beyond” compilation. Everything here is wonderful but Sleepspentt’s music is especially haunting – and I’ll play that on the radio tomorrow.
Tunefork Studios, as I wrote last week, is on the ground right now working on relief efforts with Beirut Synthesizer Center as a lead partner and many other collectives and spaces. They’re doing the work that the Lebanese government and international NGOs cannot or will not. With 1.2 million people as of today displaced in Lebanon, from Lebanese people to Syrian refugees and migrant workers, every dollar is turning into supplies like pillow and medicine. Follow that here:
It’s nothing new; these groups have worked through the port explosion and crisis and worked tirelessly on behalf of collective action for musicians. Here are just a few music selections from Tunefork – I’ll let these speak for themselves:
They can also channel pain, tell stories:
Some artists are watching from outside Beirut as the rest of us are, and I can at least say I have some small glimpse of lying awake, refreshing feeds, worrying about loved ones, even without speaking Arabic and being plugged into some nightmare on Telegram. (It’s eerie seeing that, having watched Ukrainian friends do the same.)
There’s the music of Rust, for one – they even have a track called “diaspora,” though check their full catalog, and I’ll be playing this on the radio tomorrow:
To everyone in Europe, Rust are working on a tour focused on fundraising – feel free to reach out if you can help in your town:
Or Liliane Chlela – will link to Safala as I remember seeing this live in Beirut and being awestruck:
With William, aka Rise 1969, I got to walk on the ancient Phoenician seawall, so I’ll try to recall that empires come and go and the hurt they bring with them, but we haven’t been wiped out yet. His remix “Transmutations” is dark and brilliant:
You can do fundraisers with your music, too – as MAIS UM Discos is doing:
For another fundraiser, here is the community effort to feed the displaced at Nation Station, which our friends are also staffing:
Please keep giving, and please don’t be silent.
As is the case in war, the world doesn’t just end even as the world is ending. Lebanon keeps going – as friends continue flying in and out of Beirut amid this chaos, and MEA keeps their flight schedule running. So you get the message: don’t stop.