Art and music project Jerusalem in My Heart announced their new album Qalaq to be released on October 8th via Constellations Records. The experimental project is filled with “viscerally expressive electronics and electroacoustics, framed by the spoken and sung Arabic, buzuk-playing, electronics and sound design of Lebanese-Canadian musician and producer Radwan Ghazi Moumneh.”
Qalaq is the first release by the live performance project since their album Daqa’iq Tudaiq. According to the band’s press release, their upcoming will be the sister record to the 2018 release. The new album will feature a different guest artist on almost every track. The guest artists featured on the new record include, Lucrecia Dalt, Tim Hecker, Moor Mother, Greg Fox, Rabih Beaini, Alanis Obomsawin and others.
The arabic word “Qalaq” has many different deeper meanings, but Moumneh’s intened meaning is “deep worry.” He applies this meaning to the turbulent times around the globe, but especially to the dramatic events that happened in Lebanon.
Moumneh creatively put meaning into every song on the album, as he explains, “The Side Two tracks are all named ‘Qalaq’ and then numbered, representing the degrees of layered and complex violence that Lebanon and the Levant have reached in the last couple of years.” He continues, “from the complete and utter failure of the Lebanese sectarian state that has driven the economy to a grinding halt, to its disastrous handling of the migrant influx from neighbouring failed states, to the endemic corruption that led to the August 2020 port explosion, to the latest chapter of Palestinian erasure and yet another brutally asymmetrical and disproportionate bombing campaign on Gaza.”
Check out the first powerful tracks of the album below:
The cover art of the album is an image taken by the photographer Myriam Boulos. The photo shows a scene during the Beirut October Revolution of 2019.
Qalaq Tracklist:
01. Abyad Barraq (w/ Greg Fox)
02. Sa’at (w/ Alexei Perry Cox)
03. Istashraqtaq
04. Tanto (w/ Lucrecia Dalt)
05. ‘Ana Lisan Wahad (w/ Farida Amadou & Pierre-Guy Blanchard)
06. Qalaq 1 (w/ Alanis Obomsawin & Diana Combo)
07. Qalaq 2 (w/ Roger Tellier-Craig)
08. Qalaq 3 (w/ Moor Mother)
09. Qalaq 4 (w/ Rabih Beaini)
10. Qalaq 5 (w/ Oiseaux-Tempête)
11. Qalaq 6 (w/ VÍZ [Réka Csiszér])
12. Qalaq 7 (w/ Tim Hecker)
13. Qalaq 9 (w/ Mayss, Mazen Kerbaj, Sharif Sehnaoui & Raed Yassin)
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