MASHROU3 LEILA - مشروع ليلى: November 2009

Monday, November 30, 2009

The countdown has begun!!

Less than a month left to go before we launch our album... preparations have begun, we're running around, looking for sponsors, getting the posters ready, finalizing last additions to the recordings... exciting times! What with work and university and thesis and design studios etc, it's gonna be tight.
But it's gonna be good.
That's the plan.
Tick..tick..tick..tick......boom.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Album of the Week

The New Earth Group

It's the name of the band, I think it's the name of their album. Haig, Andre, Carl and I came across them in Rotterdam during the Summer of 2008. They were playing on the Witte de Witt Street in a festival, and selling their album. It's instrumental, it's very good. You have to listen to the songs in order. They merge into each other beautifully. If you don't have it, you can find their music on myspace: http://www.myspace.com/thenewearthgroup

Enjoy ;)

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

MASHROU3 LEILA ON ARAMRAM

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Album of the week

Anouar Brahem
"Le Pas de Chat Noir"

If you don't have it, get it. If you do, listen to it again. Not while yuo're doing anything, just sitting, relaxing, listening. Give it the respect it deserves. It's incredible.

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

Mashrouʼ Leila is not a bandʼs name. It is not a proper noun per se; Mashrouʼ Leila is Arabic for ʻan overnight projectʼ lusting out a microphone, a violin, a bass, two guitars, drums and keyboards. It started out as a music workshop at the American University of Beirut in 2008, an open platform for students of architecture and design, somewhere to experiment with sounds and make things audible. Haig Papazian, Carl Gerges, Hamed Sinno, Omaya Malaeb, Andre Chedid, Firas Abou Fakher and Ibrahim Badr have enjoyed this sound fetish savoring its façade of nonchalance and feeding on its lack of genre – sustaining their collective as Mashrouʼ Leila, an experiment.

You can hear Leila, cascading melts of masculine vocals only suspended with thrusts of violin, beats and bass – attacked by neurotic melody that means no harm – sometimes tender, even sometimes on pause. Through the music, you can smell where Leila has been, in bed sheets, on sidewalks, jasmines in riﬂes and spilled coffee on dresses as she made you play with aubergines, dancing her dance. Music has constantly been their place to play with things, to match and mis-match, a project.

In the various performances, Mashrouʼ Leila is a constant attempt to taste and produce, more than happy to harvest anyone from the audience as a guest in their encores. They have performed around Lebanon since 2008, playing in various venues in Beirut, taking over supposed public piazzas as well as clubs, pubs, hybrids and the such – they also played in Zahle, Sour, Jounieh, Saida and Deir el Qamar, each of which pushed forward their thinking about how to go about their music, lyrics and performance. It is only when Mashrouʼ Leila goes live, that you can actually catch a glimpse of Leila. As it talks to you of Beirut, the city that tastes of the absurd, the product of its day-to-day experiences, its stubborn security and lack of the latter, its musical bombshells, incoherent sexuality and thrusting pleasure…narcotic pain – as it brings forward hints of Arabic Tarab, rock, to folk pop, electro, you can see Leila in every man and woman in the silent- come-raving audience. In this trajectory, they participated in music workshops and concerts in Amman and Cairo to maneuver their way into a pan-Arab music scene, to know and to announce, more importantly to grow, musically.

In March 2009, Mashrouʼ Leila won the Lebanese Modern Music Contest jury prize and public vote organized by Radio Liban in partnership with CCF, Incognito and the Basement. They are currently recording their debut album with B-root Productions, to be released in December 2009. The music in the album is a reclamation of the aftertaste; sequel-ing a dose of Beirut.

written by Raafat Majzoub