{"title":"Ruptured","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLebanese indie label \u003ci\u003eRuptured\u003c\/i\u003e was founded in 2008 by radio host Ziad Nawfal and producer\/sound engineer Fadi Tabbal from Tunefork Studios. With a focus on alternative rock, electronic, and experimental music, Ruptured serves as an outlet for their activities as music producers and promoters in Beirut. The label aims to release material by both Lebanese and international artists, showcasing a diverse range of talent.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"marjaa-the-battle-of-the-hotels","title":"Marjaa: The Battle Of The Hotels","description":"\u003cp\u003e“Marjaa: The Battle of the Hotels” is a concept album born of the idea of merging singer \u0026amp; songwriter Mayssa Jallad’s two vocations: music and urban research\/architectural history. Written in collaboration with producer Fadi Tabbal, the music builds upon Tabbal’s spatial approach to sound and Jallad’s research on Beirut’s Hotel District. The album is a reference to Jallad’s Historic Preservation master's thesis, in which she detailed the history of the “Battle of the Hotels”, a 5-months battle that took place in Beirut at the beginning of the Lebanese Civil War, from October 22nd, 1975 to March 29th, 1976. Jallad saw architecture as a main protagonist of the battle, as she discovered it was the first high rise urban battle in the world. The close of the battle resulted in the 15-year Green Line, an urban rift which split Beirut into “East and West”, restricting movement and communication and creating a violent divide that still resonates today. The album comprises two parts. Part A: Dahaliz, is a stroll in the city, where Jallad tries (and fails) to follow an old map. Musician Youmna Saba is a companion in this journey of remembering the once winding corridors (“Dahaliz”) of the city, destroyed by new developments since the 1960s. Empty skyscrapers propel her onto a past filled with the violence of snipers, and a present filled with the glamorous injustice of empty luxury real estate endorsed by powerful warlords-turned-politicians. In Part B: Maaraka, Jallad inhabits the building of the Battle of the Hotels, as its events unfold. She calls the fighting militias the Blues and Reds, respectively the Lebanese Front (Christian Nationalists) and the Lebanese National Movement (Pro-Palestinian leftists), leveling the playing field, and drawing a map of the battle through songwriting. Sary Moussa produces the conclusion of the battle in “Holiday Inn (March 21 to 29)”, which ends with the ultimate severance of the city of Beirut. The music caters to post-war youth who have never been taught this difficult history. Once we consider the “Battle of the Hotels” as our common heritage, it provides an opportunity to teach the value of civil peace. It is also a call to protest for the renewal, rather than the recycling of the political class that has once destroyed the country and holds us, to this day, hostage of its violence\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ruptured","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":50415220752715,"sku":"2056813","price":24.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/Marjaa_The_Battle_of_the_Hotels_052be039_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726688358"},{"product_id":"wishah","title":"Wishah","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eWishah\u003c\/em\u003e (veil in Arabic) is a composition in five stages, written by Youmna Saba between 2021 and 2022, for voice, oud and electronics. Following her previous solo works \u003cem\u003eNjoum\u003c\/em\u003e (2014) and \u003cem\u003eArb'een (40) \u003c\/em\u003e(2017), this album marks a significant turning point in Saba's journey. Created after leaving Beirut and settling in Paris, Wishah reveals a profound shift in her musical expression, informed by rigorous research in the sonic properties of sung Arabic phonemes and their role in shaping synthesised electronic sounds.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ruptured","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":50434848063819,"sku":"2054987","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"LP - Black","offer_id":53739141759307,"sku":"R1844-4782","price":24.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/test_5618c76d_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726895816"},{"product_id":"snakeskin","title":"Snakeskin","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eSnakeskin\u003c\/i\u003e is an album of visionary electronic dream pop, shapeshifting above ambient and industrial undercurrents. It is moody, unsettling, luminous – the culmination of a decade of collaboration and friendship between Lebanese producer\/musician\/ engineer Fadi Tabbal and singer-songwriter Julia 7 Sabra from Beirut-based indie trio Postcards. The duo began working on \u003ci\u003eSnakeskin\u003c\/i\u003e in the aftermath of the August 2020 Beirut port explosion, which killed at least 218 people, injured 7,000, and left over 300,000 people homeless. Indeed, Julia's home was destroyed by the explosion and her partner and bandmate Pascal badly injured. The first song that they wrote together afterwards was 'Roots', which closes out the album and was composed for the Ruptured-curated series The Drone Sessions in the fall of 2020. \u003ci\u003eSnakeskin\u003c\/i\u003e utilises tape loops, synthesizers, vocals, and drum machines, combining Julia’s pop-inspired melodies and choral roots (an echo from her religious upbringing) with Fadi’s affinity for minimalism and musique concrète. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe album seamlessly incorporates the melancholy electro-pop of 'All The Birds', the quiet menace of 'In Our Garden' (long-lost treasures, ancient lies \/ another buried paradise), and the beat-driven 'Signs'. The title track sums up their frame of mind, beginning as a lullaby and evolving into a glittering tapestry of distortion and feedback. As the artists write, \u003ci\u003eSnakeskin\u003c\/i\u003e is a product of \"the disappearance of life as we know it, and with it the decay of nature and living creatures. There is no rebirth, no renewal. It’s about what it means to feel at home in such a place.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Some tracks were also inspired by events happening in the surrounding region, such as the invasion of Armenia by Azerbaijan and the Palestinian uprising of May 2021 in Sheikh Jarrah - both events shedding light on relationships to home and land across the wider region. That such compelling art can emerge from unceasing tragedy may be the ultimate testament to human resilience and the pursuit of freedom and justice. \"The moon speaks in tongues we can't discern \/ A plastic dove hangs from a cypress branch \/ Haven't you heard? \/ Nothing grows here anymore \/ The air is burnt \/ Nothing grows...\" \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRIYL: Gazelle Twin, Lali Puna, This Mortal Coil, Slow Walkers, Atlas Sound, Bowery Electric, Broadcast.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ruptured","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":50504431108427,"sku":"1163621","price":24.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/c2049abb-e750-4c9e-bcfd-43c866516dad_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727805301"},{"product_id":"ensemble-1-al-jadi","title":"Ensemble 1: Al Jadi","description":"\u003cp\u003eKinematik is a Lebanese post-rock ensemble hailing from the village of Reyfoun in the Lebanese mountains. Formed in the summer of 2014, Kinematik recorded its debut album \u003ci\u003eAla\u003c\/i\u003e’ in the spring of 2017, and released it later that same year with Lebanese indie label Ruptured. This was followed later that year by a string of performances in Lebanon, as well as a number of European dates as part of a tour organized by Beirut and Beyond International Music Festival. Both\u003ci\u003e Ala'\u003c\/i\u003e and its follow-up\u003ci\u003e Murur al Kiram\u003c\/i\u003e were recorded and co-produced by Fadi Tabbal from renowned Lebanese recording studio Tunefork. Murur Al-Kiram was released by Ruptured in the winter of 2020, in the early days of the bloody Lebanese uprising and the Covid-19 pandemic. Kinematik spent the best part of 2020 under lockdown, trying to come to grips with Lebanon's and the world's new realities, battling societal, economical and sanitary hurdles and obstacles. In November 2020, upon receiving an invitation from Irtijal Festival in Beirut to perform in its 20th edition, the former trio evolved into a full-blown ensemble, comprising a total of 6 musicians - the core line-up of Anthony Sahyoun, Rudy Ghafari and Akram Hajj was joined by modular synth players Jad Atoui and Ziad Moukarzel, as well as drummer Teddy Tawil. The Irtijal performance laid the roots for a series of recording sessions, that coalesced a few months later into the long-form, elaborate compositions that make up \u003ci\u003eAl Jadi\u003c\/i\u003e, the band's third album - 4 slabs of brooding, elegiac post-rock, recorded and mixed by Fadi Tabbal, mastered by Harris Newman of Greymarket fame.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ruptured","offers":[{"title":"Black | LP","offer_id":50504931180875,"sku":"1128609","price":29.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/4a67c1f3-c71e-4567-8383-e3ffd00ed8c8_thumbnail_4096.png?v=1727811734"},{"product_id":"ghadr","title":"Ghadr","description":"\u003cp\u003eOn Ghadr, Sandy Chamoun, Anthony Sahyoun and Jad Atoui play with chaos. Built on group improvisation, surges of coruscating electronics and distortion meld with vocals that, while stemming from a background in classical Arabic singing, seek to reroute tradition. “We explore rhythmic structures that don’t have specific time signatures,” says Atoui about his and Sahyoun’s use of synthesis to embrace the tension between order and chaos. “Sandy’s approach to singing isn’t necessarily very rigid either. We felt a common inspiration.” The album, whose title imperfectly translates to ‘Treachery’, began on a residency in Switzerland while the trio were touring Europe (Chamoun solo, Atoui and Sahyoun as their duo NP). It was later finished in their home city of Beirut. The five tracks are built on vibrant circuits of guitar and modular synthesis, the former often acting as a trigger for the latter’s volatile output. Chamoun’s vocals blend her background in classical Arabic music with free-singing, using tradition as a foundation for exploration rather than standards to follow. Apart from “Hayawanon Ghader (treacherous animal)”, all the songs’ lyrics pull from the archive. Opener “Taha Layl” interprets a Bedouin folk song. “Bihali” is based on a tenth century poem by Abou Firas Al-Hamdani. “Al Moulatham” quotes an Instagram post by Yousef Al-Domouky about the war in Gaza. “Al-Samaa” uses a text from contemporary Lebanese poet Paul Chaoul.“I’m working with my references, and with the music,” explains Chamoun. “It’s a playful place with my history and now.” About the album’s title, Chamoun explains: “On this planet, the only thing that’s happening now is treachery. It’s the headline of our days.” Terror in Gaza, its shockwaves through the Middle-East and its place in longer histories loom over the record. However, while Ghadr reflects the present moment, it isn’t consumed by it. The trio agree the album reflects tenderness as much as anger. It’s audible in the effortless swings between abstract and soaring. The way Chamoun’s lyrics put ninth century odes to a bird and ancient Bedouin love songs next to personal reflections by Al-Domouky or Chaoul on real world tragedies. Sonically and lyrically Ghadr is music of possibility and potential. The five tracks travel through unbounded terrain rather than along fixed paths. “I don’t like to pull the listener in one direction,” Chamoun continues. “You need to play with your imagination and not stick to one story and one meaning.” While the record reflects their state of mind as residents of Lebanon, and the uncertainty that entails, Sahyoun suggests they’re striving to reach beyond it. “We try to access parts of our subconscious and see what dimensions it has outside of what we’re witnessing day to day. When we play, there’s a rhythm between the three of us. We feel each other sway,” Ghadr is the first release under the name Chamoun\/Sahyoun\/Atoui, but the trio’s connection is deeply rooted. Sahyoun and Chamoun are members of ecstatic rock collective Sanam. Atoui and Sahyoun’s explorations of synthesis, solo and as NP, are long-running. On Ghadr these histories form something new. A charged record which faces the world as it is while offering glimpses of something else. (Written by Daryl Worthington)\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ruptured","offers":[{"title":"Black LP","offer_id":50812427043147,"sku":"2232181","price":27.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/CS1056697-01A-BIG_37d8480b_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1734672568"},{"product_id":"i-recognize-you-from-my-sketches","title":"I recognize you from my sketches","description":"\u003cp\u003eWith I recognize you from my sketches, Tabbal further refines his signature sound, delving into the spaces between memory, identity, and personal growth. This album is a meditation on the emotional disconnect between who we aspire to be and the person we ultimately become, captured through a minimalist and emotionally charged sonic landscape.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ruptured","offers":[{"title":"Black LP","offer_id":51005065134411,"sku":"2237157","price":24.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/a3885863925_16_187bced8_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1738357722"},{"product_id":"natural-history-museum-ap","title":"Natural History Museum","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"I loved Julia Sabra’s Natural History Museum—it was released at the end of the year and is quietly devastating. Her lyricism and sensitivity in timbre and harmony is akin for me to the great Linda Perhacs. The songs are intimate and infinite feeling at the same time—I love the raw and soft poetic settings of love and death.\" Julia Holter (Best album 2024- Fader) “This album is a collection of songs written between 2020 and 2024 in Beirut. I wanted to capture them the way they were written by keeping the rawness and fragility intact, like the late-night voice memos I send to my bandmates as soon as I have a first draft of a song. Fadi and I decided to record them live on tape, with no overdubs, barely any effect - with all the imperfections. Most of the tracks were done in one take only. Some were recorded in the studio, and some in the church I grew up going to every summer in Dhour Shweir. This is a collection of songs that slipped through the cracks, and some of the most personal ones I ever wrote. Songs about the port explosion, its aftermath, picking up the pieces and trying to move on, coming to terms with the past, regret and nostalgia for a childhood that lives only in memory, the uncertain future, learning to love, getting married, watching a genocide unfold on my phone screen, having it fill my every waking moment, imagining a better send off for all the dead, processing the violence and terror, and finding solace in community. These songs would’ve probably stayed in my “songs in limbo” folder on my laptop had it not been for Pascal and Fadi, who pushed me to release them. And for this I’m eternally grateful.” Julia Sabra, September 2024.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ruptured","offers":[{"title":"10\" - Black","offer_id":51643622195531,"sku":"R6026-8266","price":21.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/a0941240349_16.jpg?v=1744730501"},{"product_id":"the-dome-sessions","title":"The Dome Sessions","description":"\u003cp\u003eR\u003cmeta charset=\"UTF-8\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eecorded in the Oscar Niemeyer Dome in Tripoli, Lebanon, \u003cem\u003eThe Dome Sessions\u003c\/em\u003e captures the distinctive acoustics of this iconic masterpiece. Designed in 1962, the dome’s architectural and acoustic qualities provide a distinctive reverb and resonance, shaping a project that dissolves the boundaries between sound, space, and memory.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"page\" title=\"Page 30\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"layoutArea\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"column\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFeaturing performances by notable musicians from Lebanon's contemporary experimental scene, the album invites listeners to engage in an immersive auditory journey, exploring the interplay of sound, memory, and space.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Ruptured","offers":[{"title":"2LP - Black","offer_id":52028760195403,"sku":"R1660-2642","price":47.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/VA_DomeSessions.jpg?v=1749500391"},{"product_id":"the-true-history-of-the-tortoise-and-the-hare-according-to-lord-dunsany","title":"The True History of the Tortoise and the Hare According to Lord Dunsany","description":"\u003cp class=\"p1\"\u003eIn 2016, French post-rock collective Oiseaux-Tempête traveled to Beirut to record their album \u003cem\u003eAl-‘An!\u003c\/em\u003e at Tunefork Studios, collaborating with a diverse lineup of Lebanese musicians, including Charbel Haber, Youmna Saba, Sharif Sehnaoui, and Two or The Dragon. This creative exchange infused the album with the city's vibrant experimental scene, blending Oiseaux-Tempête’s signature atmospheric sound with elements of Levantine improvisation, noise, and drone.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"p1\"\u003eAs their time in Beirut drew to a close, founding members Frédéric D. Oberland and Stéphane Pigneul—without their full band—joined forces with Lebanese drone and ambient artists Charbel Haber and Fadi Tabbal of The Bunny Tylers for an impromptu live performance at the underground club Reunion. This spontaneous collaboration resulted in a hypnotic, free-flowing sonic tapestry, merging immersive drones, textural guitar work, and pulsating electronics in a raw and exploratory session.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"p1\"\u003eCaptured live, this unique performance was later released as a limited-edition album via the Beirut-based independent label Ruptured. The release, whose first edition of 300 hand-numbered CDs quickly sold out, serves as both a document of the encounter and a rare artefact of the city’s thriving experimental music underground.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ruptured","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":53199686336843,"sku":"R1986-9219","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/2000x2000bb_758b5b0c-2028-4e24-a0fd-42e526f2ff60.jpg?v=1755523868"},{"product_id":"we-live-in-sand","title":"We Live In Sand","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"This time there's no escape,\" goes Snakeskin’s “October Sun,” the lead single from their third album We Live In Sand. A looped vocal motif and elegiac organ circle around Julia Sabra’s otherworldly voice as she sings of ringing drones and ominous echoes. Since their inception, the Lebanese duo’s music has served as a kind of real-time archive of their country's turmoil. We Live In Sand is their darkest, rawest release yet — written in October 2024, just as the Israeli war on Gaza fully spread to Lebanon and finally reached Beirut. The band’s 2022 self-titled debut was shaped by the aftermath of the Beirut port explosion. They Kept Our Photographs (2024) was written in the early months of the war on Gaza. But on We Live In Sand, the violence is no longer at a distance. It is here, now. The war has reached their doorstep.\u2028\u2028There is no soft entry point this time. Opener “Ready” begins mid-collapse: fractured, glitchy, elemental. Fadi Tabbal’s production cracks and rumbles like tectonic plates, while Sabra sings through autotune — ethereal, almost post-human: “There’s life inside my bones\". It’s a stunning paradox — a song about birth, caught in the middle of destruction. Hope, fragile and flickering, seeps through the rubble. Snakeskin has always thrived in extremes, but here the contrast is sharpened to a knife’s edge. Second single “Blindsided” delivers the record’s poppiest —and perhaps most devastating— moment. The album’s central thesis can be found in the chorus: \"How to love in the face of this death?\" The duo consistently mine new ways —lyrical and musical— to reflect the duality of their reality. The inescapable darkness and the unwavering love. The bleakness and the beauty. The record’s second half moves into deeper, darker waters. “Olive Groves” and “Black Water” are sparse, mournful incantations — too haunted for full sentences. Sabra has grown increasingly adept at squeezing vivid imagery and meaning from succinct lines. Tabbal's production is equally evocative, from the 80s-melancholic-pop of “The Fear” to piano dirge “In The Pines”. Indeed, Pitchfork described his most recent solo album, I Recognize You From My Sketches, as “his most texturally diverse record yet.” The title track recalls the duo’s earliest collaborations: minimal, nursery-rhyme-like, haunting. “There was a boy \/ hair white as chalk \/ who went to bed \/ beneath the rocks.” By the time closer “In the Pines” arrives, there is no resolution. Only smoke, ruin, and the sound of crickets. “I thought I was fine,” Sabra sings — the kind of line that lands hardest when everything has already been lost. Where They Kept Our Photographs ended on a hopeful note, We Live In Sand is resolute in its realism. It’s Snakeskin at their most urgent, and their most essential — bearing witness to impossible events. What it feels like to wait, to love, to grieve, and to keep living while the world falls apart. Thankfully, Snakeskin persevere, sending us ever more affecting transmissions from the archive.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ruptured","offers":[{"title":"LP - Black","offer_id":53290880270667,"sku":"R4651-4057","price":24.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/weliveinsand_front_3000_1.png?v=1756740793"},{"product_id":"may-a-soft-sun-bless-your-sky-while-you-wait-for-the-inevitable","title":"May a soft sun bless your sky while you wait for the inevitable","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhile wandering Parisian streets, Charbel Haber felt May a Soft Sun Bless Your Sky While You Wait for the Inevitable illuminate the idyllic scenes around him. The radiant melodies he had written seeped into the landscape and made its colors a little more vivid. It was 2025 and the Lebanese musician, performer, visual artist and composer had just moved to the city from Beirut; he had always loved Paris and he felt it was time to put some distance between himself and war around him. He couldn’t forgo the horrors of the world, but his music could help him find some softness. May a Soft Sun Bless Your Sky While You Wait for the Inevitable was born out of that moment, from both Haber’s love of Paris and his desire to find gentleness despite the horrors of the world. Determination and resilience are the force behind these tender melodies, driving each billowing hum. Underneath the minimalist swaths of guitar lies a quote from Riilke: “Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.” It was a new endeavor to make a record so grounded in Paris. Much of Haber’s solo work is rooted in life in Beirut, and he is a central figure in Lebanon’s experimental and post-punk scenes. His work can be heard in groups like Scrambled Eggs and The Bunny Tylers and in films and visual artworks; as a soloist, he explores ambient, distorted guitar as a vehicle for storytelling, crafting music that sits somewhere between Glenn Branca and Alice Coltrane, blending the grit of Branca’s no wave with Coltrane’s spiritual approach. May a Soft Sun is an album he’s wanted to make for many years, one that’s driven by fluid melodies, and it came alive in Paris, like his world was a living theater. Haber crafted the album with his usual setup of guitar, looper pedals, and a small modular rig, all tools he regularly implements to make a lo-fi, expansive sound. But while he works with just a few instruments, the music of May a Soft Sun is sprawling and ever-evolving. Tracks like opener “This show starts in the future” have so many layers stitched together they feel orchestral in scope. Here, several plumy melodies swirl around each other and slowly meld together; at times, guitar punctures these clouds and propels them forward like the wind. Elsewhere, Haber embraces a faster pace, like with “I stutter when I speak of Life and Death,” which unfurls across a series of rippling phrases; they intertwine with anxious fervor and gradually disperse into wisps. And with closer “This show ends in the past,” Haber brings all these disparate textures into one cinematic package, weaving a piece of melancholy and hope from many different threads. So much of May a Soft Sun foregrounds those coiled, gossamer textures and lush phrases, creating a cocoon-like warmth. It’s balmy, yet it also embraces the melancholy of being alive. Listening is like taking a journey toward acceptance, one that embraces the gruesomeness of living and finds some softness in between the moments of darkness. In these melodies lie layers of sorrow, of grief, and of hope, all intertwined into one tangled and beautiful web. – Vanessa Ague, February 2026\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ruptured","offers":[{"title":"LP - Black","offer_id":56922511212875,"sku":"R5458-8844","price":24.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/CargoRecords_242115711252949_6498871630303255294_CoverImage-2_8664.png?v=1774946751"},{"product_id":"sawt-el-doumouh","title":"Sawt El Doumouh","description":"\u003cp\u003eOn her second album, Sawt El Doumouh (The Sound of Tears), Beirut-based Sandy Chamoun summons flickers of light from sadness. Influences from the Arabic tradition of Tarab – one of the first styles Chamoun learnt to sing – and polyphonic Cantu are reinterpreted and reimagined through her voice and electronics, synths from her SANAM and Ghadr bandmate Anthony Sayhoun, and live percussion from Ali Hout. Marked by its times, the record isn’t what Chamoun had planned. “I wrote the lyrics between October 2023 and September 2025,” she explains. “The plan was to write about nature, since the album’s concept was inspired by Cantu, a tenor Sardinian ritual that celebrates humanity’s victory over nature. I intended to visit several places and regions in Lebanon and write a track for each, but after the genocide and the war in Lebanon, everything changed.” “I chose the title because many mornings during this period I woke up crying silently. I remember a dark story from school: a teacher yelled at a small boy while he was crying and told him to cry without making any sound. I feel we are still living in that condition in the region — forced to die or suffer without making any noise.” Sawt El Doumouh is a gorgeous refusal to be silent. It opens with a booming drum. Over keening autotune Chamoun’s pure voice cuts through, burying the despair to illuminate rays of hope. On “Ward W Shok” a shuffling swing gives way to a righteous organ interlude. The title track sees a choir of Chamoun’s vocals lull and lap. Drums arrive and indignation stirs, what’s mournful begins to stride. Chamoun’s tracks are as beautiful as they are defiant. Why write songs in the face of horror? Perhaps because music can hold onto something better. By turning to song, Chamoun catches the hopeful glints and sparks that persist and strive outside the terror. In SANAM and Ghadr she often borrows lyrics from Arabic writers through the centuries, listening to what their words say in the present while reminding us the world can and has been different to how it is now. Solo she writes her own words, and the way her songs alternately soar and sigh evokes hopeful pluralities and suggestions of other, kinder realities. Even hearing someone cry is a connection to humanity. It’s a possibility conveyed in the album’s most jubilant moments. “Shahed” is an incandescent dance of percussion and levitating synths. “I wrote it after I saw a photo of a small boy on a horse on the beach in Gaza,” Chamoun recalls. “I imagined a fantasy where the boy lives in the water and watches the terrifying reality on the shore, trying to bring water to put out the fire. Shahed is the witness who lives far from the shore, enjoying the water and trying to help. You can hear this duality: the percussion is desert-like, while the vocals and synths evoke the feeling of water.” Although it comes from darkness, in Chamoun’s music we can hear faith in something beyond it.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ruptured","offers":[{"title":"LP - Black","offer_id":57140509311307,"sku":"R7574-0644","price":24.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/CoverImage-3copy_3557.jpg?v=1777300365"},{"product_id":"change-image-it-will-take-forever-sq","title":"Change Image It Will Take Forever","description":"\u003cp\u003eOn It Will Take Forever, Beirut-based sound artist Jad Atoui constructs six immersive modular synthesis pieces shaped by instability, suspended time, and physical endurance. Developed through live performance between 2023 and 2025, the album stretches the force and physicality of club sound into abstract electronic environments built from distortion, feedback, saturation, and drifting tonal fragments.\n\u003cbr\u003eDrawing from ambient noise, power electronics, electro-acoustic composition, and free improvisation, the record explores release and collapse not as musical gestures but as bodily states. Loud, dense, and emotionally disorienting, these pieces move through pressure and fragmentation while maintaining a tactile sense of presence.\n\u003cbr\u003eMixed by Anthony Sahyoun and mastered by Jesse Osborne-Lanthier, It Will Take Forever continues Atoui’s singular trajectory within Beirut’s experimental music landscape.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ruptured","offers":[{"title":"LP - Black","offer_id":57586029232459,"sku":"R8915-4063","price":24.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/CargoRecords_2F242115711252949_2F6570071071767293943_2FCoverImage-4-2.png?v=1781538847"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/collections\/test_4b668d34_thumbnail_4096_73877ca2-1842-408a-8c25-98f2397316f9.jpg?v=1726688335","url":"https:\/\/shop.roughtrade.com\/de\/collections\/ruptured.oembed","provider":"Rough Trade","version":"1.0","type":"link"}