Snaps

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?

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.

In this diaristic essay, Majd Shidiac conjures up his affecting responses to the sounds and compositions of musicians and practitioners that register the systemic violence the country has seen in the past few years.

The 2019 October protests in Beirut took place after singer/songwriter Mayssa Jallad returned to Lebanon. This short essay reflects on the role of songwriting and singing as tools for resistance and derision during the uprising.

Field recordings and sampling are at the center of this short essay in which performer and music producer Jana Saleh explains why her inability to use recordings of Beirut’s momentous events has led her to think differently about musical composition.

This poetic text by Carine Doumit is inspired by «The Night Came About», a film co-written by the author and filmmaker Mira Adoumier. It recounts the fictional encounter of two characters from the film, following an equivocal transformation of Beirut at night.

In this essay, artist Joe Namy discusses the culture of car sound-systems which exists in Beirut and across the world to delve deeper into the meaning of bass and its role in community life.