MASHROU3 LEILA - مشروع ليلى: VLOGS FROM THE PAST

Monday, September 20, 2010

VLOGS FROM THE PAST

MASHROU3 LEILA VLOG003 - SOUNDCHECK SAIDA from mashrou3 Leila on Vimeo.

last year around this time we were sound checking in Saida for the 3erss el Madina street festival. that's when we started the vlog - an it stopped for a while - now it'll be back, on a weekly basis [fingers crossed] - of things that happened, things that are happening and might happen between the 7 of us.

2 comments:

MoudiOctober 6, 2010 at 4:22 PM
This is a good place to comment than none.

I wanted to say that it is wonderful what you guys do. Lebanon has long needed a strong political statement, and you definitely exhibit that through art.

Unfortunately, I have been gone for about five years now and have lost a grip on the language or understanding of many of the current events. With that said, I do find myself not understanding a lot of the songs or contexts, but I understand enough to appreciate your work.

Good luck on all your upcoming projects.
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haig--October 7, 2010 at 1:41 AM
hello moudi.

Thank you so much for your kind words - and the support - very much appreciated. I guess we'll have to come to a city near you and play or you just have to come back one day - even for a little while - sooner or later...

haig / mashrou3
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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

Monday, September 20, 2010

VLOGS FROM THE PAST

2 comments:

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