A compilation from the Norient City Sounds Special on Beirut, Lebanon, curated by writer and educator Rayya Badran. It gathers some of Badran’s favorite tracks from Beirut. A very personal selection that captures the shifts from sorrow to riotous urges, from surrender to escape, from remembrance to lapses of memory.

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Trailer 

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Part of the Norient Online Special Norient City Sounds: Beirut

The second Norient City Sounds Online Special travels to Beirut, Lebanon, a city that continues to witness an aggravating financial and economic crisis in the midst of prolonged political and social turmoil. Plunged in darkness and reeling from traumatic events that have occurred since 2020, the city and its artists and musicians have resisted in various ways during this difficult time. The title of this edition, «Beirut Adrift», evokes a sense of loss and disorientation but also a drift in the city’s new sonic and musical terrains. The talented contributors of this edition have responded to these sounds through this generous collection of essays, sound pieces, mixtapes, photographic series, sound walks, and more. Curated by Rayya Badran.

Explore full Special here.

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The Tracks

1. Yara Asmar: «Jumana»

Yara Asmar builds fantastical melancholy worlds in both her music and puppeteering. They exude a sense of instant familiarity. Playing a diverse range of instruments, from the accordion, metallophone, to other prepared instruments, Asmar’s «Jumana» is a track that combines paradoxical registers of playfulness and sorrow.

2. Anthony Sahyoun: «Khifat Al-Atraf» (with Firas al Hallak)

Pulled from Anthony Sahyoun’s debut solo album Proof by Infinite Descent, released in 2021, «Khifat Al-Atraf» features the solemn voice of Firas Hallak who recounts visions of horror the city of Beirut has witnessed. The track is almost cinematic in its ability to conjure up spaces and landscapes. Voice and electronics are given space to deploy their idiosyncratic qualities.

3. Jad Atoui & Khodor Ellaik: «Blackout»

«Blackout» is a sprawling, languorous track that features Jad Atoui’s modular synthesizers and acoustic objects with Khodor Ellaik’s rarely heard saxophone playing. Released in 2021 and recorded during a spontaneous jam session, the album Mad City, Cool Weather is their first time recording as a duo. The track almost lulls its listeners to a state of surrender amidst a sea of blackouts.

4. Elyse Tabet & Jawad Nawfal: «Coast III»

Electronic musicians Jawad Nawfal (who also performs and records under the moniker Munma) and Elyse Tabet started a musical correspondence in 2013 when they were located on separate continents, culminating with a sonic buildup of machine drums and synth sounds, traveling from coast to coast. The album is released on Nawfal’s imprint VV-VA.

5. Sandy Chamoun: «Nas el Wahel»

Singer and music producer Sandy Chamoun, who contributed a mixtape to the «Norient City Sounds: Beirut» Online Special, released «Nas el Wahel» or «People of the Mud» earlier in 2022. The track is the second from her trilogy entitled fata17oct which references the October 17 protests that started in Lebanon in 2019. Her voice, once longing, becomes a force to reckon with as she summons the people of the mud.

6. Mayssa Jallad & Khaled Allaf: «Madina min baeed»

Mayssa Jallad and Syrian musician Khaled Allaf collaborate on «Madina min baeed» (The City from Afar) co-released by Beirut label Thawra Records & global artist collective Found Sound Nation. The track is one of three installments to come. Speaking from the standpoint of the city of Beirut, Jallad’s songwriting unravels its vulnerability with Allaf’s subdued trip hop-inspired music.

7. Two or the Dragon: «Prelude for the Triumphant Man II»

Electro-acoustic musicians Abed Kobeissy and Ali Hout formed Two or The Dragon in 2014 when they started to compose music for dance and theater performances. They play Arabic percussion and string instruments such as the duhulla and the buzuq and incorporate electronic effects into their compositions, most evident in «Prelude of a Triumphant Man II», in an attempt to sonically reflect the multitude of vibrations, drones, and other machine sounds erupting from the city of Beirut.

8. Sary Moussa: «Tides»

Sary Moussa’s latest full-length album Imbalance revisits the producer’s past sonic environments with recordings of landscapes and voices which penetrate through beautifully elaborate envelopes of noise and electronic rhythms. «Tides» is a subtle but foreshadowing track that evokes the incessant surge of events to come.

9. Fadi Tabbal: «Ceremony by the Sea»

Fadi Tabbal is a stalwart of Beirut’s music community. He has recorded, produced, and trained countless musicians at Tunefork Studios, a specialized sound and music workspace. His elegiac «Ceremony by the Sea» is taken from his masterful ambient album Subject To Potential Errors And Distortion, co-released in 2020 by Beacon Sound and Ruptured.