Music Reviews Stories
On the sublime BETHLEHEM بيت لحم, walls in time and space fall
The exquisite collaboration of Lawrence Sammour, Sary Moussa, and Abed Kobeissy, Bethlehem, is released this month. And it has become a rich sanctuary, a shared space that refuses erasure or fragmentation. It also refuses to obey the boundaries of colonialism and occupation, weaving together what was pulled apart, as taut and resonant as the strings of the buzuq.
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Bana Haffar’s Ancient Future mutates memory and meaning in machines
If you feel at sea in a starless night, Ancient Future might summon charts from the ancestors, fragmented through samples and voltages, a hauntology of modular deconstruction. Bana Haffar, co-founder of Modular on the Spot in LA and Beirut Synthesizer Center in Lebanon, has an essential offering out this month.
Peter Kirn - October 13, 2026
Modular-Analog Music
In masses of live electronic sound, Jad Atoui built an opus
It Will Take Forever moves through emotions in swells, as if pulling us through feelings. Composed and played live on modular synths from 2023 to 2025 in Beirut, Jad Atoui’s work almost sings grief through those electronics, in a world being ripped apart. Behind it, club-sized sub-bass impact rumbles like our own bodies. There’s now a video by Ralf Moussa, as well.
