Snaps

Listen to this playlist of artists from Beirut. This selection features new and older releases by musicians across musical genres.

An introductory text to the Online Special «Norient City Sounds: Beirut». Special curator and writer Rayya Badran asks: what are the sounds of the aftermath of a collapse?

Producer, DJ, radio host, and label owner Ziad Nawfal presents a moving mixtape which bids farewell to his native city of Beirut. True to his mission of promoting music from Lebanon, Nawfal includes some of his favorite local musicians, interspersed with field recordings.

In this sound piece, Ziad Moukarzel uses the recordings taken on a walk through Beirut, Lebanon, as a point of departure for this composition, which seamlessly blends exterior and interior sounds during one the most acute fuel crises the country has faced.

Invoking the struggle of women composers and producers in the city of Beirut, Lebanon, producer, DJ, and performer Lilian Chlela produces a mix that reflects the breadth and richness of their music whilst highlighting the challenges they must overcome.

Jad Atoui’s sound piece is a composition rife with electromagnetic frequencies, hums, and other machine sounds which continue to envelop the city of Beirut and its sleepless residents.

How can sound permeate an image? With her wandering lens, Caroline Tabet portrays the sounds of the city of Beirut still reeling from the compounding crises that have dulled it.

In this short essay, Rabea Hajaig recalls his experience as a Friday-night DJ at Bardo, the famous, now closed, queer bar in Beirut, Lebanon, its dance floors awash with a complex interplay of music.