The Experimental Sounds of Lebanon

In a moment when Lebanese voices are largely being ignored, First Floor highlights some of the country's most crucial experimental and electronic artists.

The US and Israel are still waging war on Iran, and although it’s not yet clear whether they will follow through on President Trump’s barbarous threat to bomb the country “back into the stone ages, where they belong,” the damage, death toll and danger continue to mount. Meanwhile, Israel’s simultaneous incursion into Lebanon has barely registered, both in the Western media and the broader discourse. More than one million people there have already been displaced, and Israel has declared its intention to occupy approximately 10% of Lebanese territory for an indeterminate period of time. Along the way, the Israeli military has assured Christian and Druze leaders that they could remain in the evacuation zone, while also pressuring those same leaders to, as The New York Times reported, “force out any Lebanese from neighboring Shiite Muslim communities who have sought refuge among them.” The historical parallels to that particular tactic are plain to see, but the situation seems to have already moved beyond a point where Israel or The US are going to be stopped, or even slowed, by the specter of past atrocities.

Now, what does this have to do with electronic music? Admittedly, not much. It is true that an alarming number of artists (and their teams) are apparently still comfortable playing at and doing business with festivals that are ultimately owned by KKR—a pro-Israel private equity giant with extensive ties to weapons manufacturing and surveillance technology—but even the most starry-eyed activist would likely concede that the electronic music realm has almost zero capacity to affect the geopolitical playing field, let alone an actual war.

At the same time, as the bombing continues and the bombast—which increasingly includes Trump’s threats to commit war crimes—steadily escalates, I find it hard to place much importance on much of anything else. And sure, First Floor will continue to recommend albums, interview artists and publish essays examining the systemic ills of the music industry, but I’m not going to pretend that any of those things feels terribly essential right now.

I’m guessing—or at least hoping—that plenty of other music and culture journalists are wrestling with similar feelings, and though the publications they work for have largely adopted a policy of not talking about the war, the nice thing about having an independent platform like First Floor is that I can take the editorial wherever I like. That doesn’t mean the newsletter is suddenly shifting into full-blown political coverage—I assure you, there are much better outlets for that—but saying nothing isn’t an option I can live with. So in an effort to do something constructive, I thought I’d dedicate today’s edition to highlighting some of my favorite contemporary Lebanese artists.

Even before the current war broke out, Lebanon (like most Middle Eastern countries) was routinely overlooked by the West, especially in the realm of cultural discourse, and now that the country’s suffering has sadly become the B-plotine to what’s unfolding in Iran, its people and their perspectives are once again being relegated to the sidelines. First Floor doesn’t have a capacity to singlehandedly change that, but directly pointing readers toward some Lebanese artists—many of which have much more thoughtful things to say about their situation than I do—is perhaps the tiniest of steps in the right direction.

To be clear, I’ve never been to Lebanon and I’m not in any way an expert on the country or its culture. I have, however, admired its musical output from afar, and the folks listed below—some of which reside in Lebanon, while others are members of the diaspora—are artists whose work has struck me as moving, interesting or both. (Many of them have actually been featured in the newsletter before.) In other words, this assemblage of names is a personal one, and is by no means meant to provide a comprehensive overview of the Lebanese scene, or even just the portion of it that’s focused on electronic and experimental music. It’s also something I’ve elected to publish without the usual subscriber paywall, because spreading the word about these artists—and the horrors their country is experiencing—feels more important than boosting my income right now.

Let’s get started.

Land 02 and Land 03

I know I promised a list of artists, but those looking for an entryway into Lebanon’s experimental landscape should most definitely check out Land 02 and Land 03, a pair of benefit compilations that were issued last month by Tunefork Studios and the Beirut Synth Center. The fact that all proceeds will go towards supporting those displaced by the current war—more specifically, they will go to “Beit Aam and other local grassroots initiatives in Beirut and the South”—is reason enough to pick up these compilations, but they also include dozens of artists from what is clearly a creatively rich and deeply underappreciated scene.

Mayssa Jallad

Based in Beirut, Mayssa Jallad is a singer / songwriter, architect and urban researcher who’s repeatedly woven the history of Lebanon into her work. Just last week, she released “Taamir (Bahriyyeh),” a haunting song rooted in the complex, decades-long history of a refugee camp and social housing project which grew side by side near the city of Saida. Even more substantial was 2023’s Marjaa: The Battle of the Hotels, a ghostly avant-pop album inspired by a ’70s-era conflict between dueling high rises during the run-up to the Lebanese civil war. Two years later, that LP was given a gauzy reimagining when Jallad linked up with Swedish artist Civilistjävel! on the spellbinding Marjaa: The Battle of the Hotels (Versions), and the two will actually be performing together later this week at the Rewire festival. Jallad will also be doing a separate performance at Rewire with her eponymous trio, which is this week embarking on a brief European tour.

Youmna Saba

Another Beirut native, Youmna Saba now resides in Paris, though her practice still revolves around her mastery of the oud—a Middle Eastern stringed instrument that’s similar to a lute. In Saba’s hands, however, it becomes a sort of electroacoustic device, its various tones and trembles serving as textural layers in her atmospheric compositions. Those compositions also include her own hauntingly beautiful voice, as Saba is deeply interested in the way that the Arabic language (in its sung form) interacts with the realm of experimental sound. Electronic heads might have caught her collaborative performance alongside UK producer Al Wootton at last year’s Le Guess Who? festival, but Saba has numerous solo albums under her belt, the most recent being 2023’s potent Wishah و​ِ​ش​ا​ح.

Yara Asmar

The accordion isn’t an instrument that most people would immediately associate with the Middle East, but it’s actually been a part of the region’s musical repertoire since at least the first half of the 20th century. Yara Asmar first found one sitting in her parents’ attic, and it eventually became the core of both her debut, 2022’s Home Recordings 2018 - 2021, and the following year’s synth waltzes and accordion laments. Her palette has expanded since then, and now includes a variety of toy instruments, metallophones, music boxes and reel-to-reel recordings of her family, but what’s held consistent is Asmar’s appetite for sonic experimentation. Last year’s everyone I love is sleeping and I love them so so much is her most recent full-length, and it’s full of delicate melodies, resonant drones and fractured memories of her home.

Snakeskin

A duo featuring singer / songwriter Julia Sabra and experimental producer / musician Fadi Tabbal—both of whom are accomplished solo artists in their own right—Snakeskin is a project that first came together in the aftermath of the calamitous Beirut port explosion in 2020. (Sabra’s home was actually destroyed in the blast.) Since then, they’ve settled into a seductive strain of dream pop, one that weaves together Sabra’s background in indie bands and choral singing with Tabbal’s penchant for glitchy electronics and musique concrète. Given the near-constant tumult they—and, frankly, all of Lebanon—have experienced in recent years, Snakeskin has no shortage of darkness to draw upon, and while that weight does color their output—last year’s We live in sand album was billed as the group’s “darkest, rawest release yet”—their music is more strongly defined by its shimmering, unpolished beauty.

Nour Sokhon

A multi-disciplinary artist who splits her time between Beirut and Berlin, Nour Sokhon is in many ways a collagist, as she brings together not just music, but field recordings and interview snippets to create her narrative compositions and sound installations. Although she’s exhibited her work and performed at spaces and festivals all around the globe, her most affecting piece to date is one focused on the sights and sounds of the Lebanese capital. Entitled Beirut Birds and released as an album in 2024, it’s something Sokhon describes as a “a sonic memory capsule honoring (inter)personal stories of migration, displacement and the cyclical turbulent circumstances in Lebanon.” Musically speaking, it’s an ambient effort, one populated with shuddering rhythms, lurching textures and, yes, a sampling of bird sounds, but what’s perhaps most impactful are its voices, which are not only extracted from interviews Sokhon herself conducted, but reflect on the challenges and complexities of life in her homeland.

Sary Moussa

A veteran artist who’s logged nearly two decades in Beirut’s experimental circuit, Sary Moussa is more defined by an exploratory ethos than any allegiance to a particular sound. That’s likely why he’s been welcomed into the fold by Nicolas Jaar’s order-blurring Other Music imprint, which has issued both 2020’s Imbalance and last year’s Wind, Again LP. While the former revisited soundscapes from his childhood via “a choir of synthesizers and noise singing in and out of sync,” the latter explored his long-standing interest in resonance and harmonics through a series of collaborations, some of them with artists who’ve already been mentioned in this piece. Memory is a big part of his work, and though his music is informed by a certain degree of nostalgia, it feels less like the soundtrack to an overly idealized, long-lost version of Lebanon, and more like an ode to the beauty that has always existed among the country’s trials and tribulations.

Rabih Beaini

Of all the Lebanese electronic and experimental artists, Rabih Beaini is arguably the one who’s made the biggest impression—or at least is the one whose name is most likely to be recognized by the European techno set, who likely remember all of the incredible records he made as Morphosis during the 2000s and early 2010s. Although that moniker has now been retired, and his musical interests have expanded well beyond the confines of the dancefloor, Beaini remains very active, releasing music (both under his own name and as Ra.H), taking part in collaborative endeavors like the Upperground Orchestra, heading up the Morphine label, working as a sound engineer and running Morphine Raum, a recording studio and event space in his adopted home of Berlin.

Ruptured Records

Like any major city, Beirut is home to a litany of record labels, but Ruptured Records is an outpost that has come to truly embody the modern sound and spirit of Lebanon’s experimental music circuit. Co-founded in 2008 by DJ and radio host Ziad Nawfal and the aforementioned Fadi Tabbal—who, aside from making music, founded Tunefork Studios and works as a recording engineer—the imprint has amassed a giant catalog, focusing primarily on leftfield electronic music and experimental rock but also maintaining a sense of sonic fluidity, one guided more by creativity than adherence to strict genre norms. In truth, nearly every single artist mentioned in this piece has at one point appeared on a Ruptured release, and so have plenty of other artists, who hail not just from Lebanon, but other parts of the world as well. As much as the label is a Lebanese concern, and one that proudly champions its local talent, Ruptured’s vision transcends borders and stereotypes of what Middle Eastern music is “supposed” to sound like. It’s on those of us in the West to figure that out.

A little bonus:

Anthology of Electroacoustic Lebanese music

Including this might constitute a form of cheating, as the Anthology of Electroacoustic Lebanese music is a compilation that was actually released by an Italian label, Unexplained Sounds Group, back in 2018. Even so, it provides a high-quality snapshot of Lebanon’s experimental music scene, and while that snapshot is now six years old, many of the artists I’ve mentioned in this article show up in the tracklist. As I said in the introduction to this piece, the round-up I’ve put together doesn’t come close to listing all of the country’s most important and influential artists, but if you go through all of the names I’ve listed, and you’ve also gone through everyone on the Land 02 and Land 03 compilations, then the Anthology of Electroacoustic Lebanese music is not a bad next step for anyone who wants to keep on digging.

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A quick note before I wrap this up: Although I never, ever do this, I’ve decided to open up the comments section on this piece, because I’m hoping that readers might share some of their favorite contemporary Lebanese artists / labels / etc. that I haven’t mentioned.

Please don’t make me regret it.

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First Floor is published and overseen by Shawn Reynaldo, a freelance writer, editor, presenter and project manager. Find him on LinkedIn and Instagram—and make sure to follow First Floor on Instagram as well—or you can just drop Shawn an email to get in touch about projects, collaborations or other potential opportunities.