Mashrou' Leila
Genre: experimental, Indie, rock, world.
Year: 2009
The biggest thing now, since
Soap Kills. Maybe because everyone knows them as they are students in the most popular uni here, or maybe because they truly capture the spirit of the Lebanese youth. Their lyrics are a mix of everything a young adult living in this screwed up middle east hears and feels. From the wars, car bombs, to the social problems of a very uptight religious and sectarian land and the rising rate of the jobless that only find peace in immigrating to richer bigger countries. It's not wholly driven by the western influences, which makes it the most genuine music of this last decade, respecting the identity of the original middle eastern sound.
Quote:
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Mashrouʼ Leila is Arabic for 'an 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. 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. The music in their debut album, released in December 2009 with B-root Productions is a reclamation of the aftertaste; sequel-ing a dose of Beirut. (Adapted from a text by Raafat Majzoub)
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I only heard of them very recently, after many of my friends had seen them live and were never able to shut-up about it. So I first listened to them two weeks ago, in my friend's car, after he purchased the album at the just mentioned concert. It took me less than a minute to notice how unique they were. It was a mix of everything I've ever heard, but still something very new. A lot of inside jokes, and references in the lyrics, which makes it even more familiar, but still, it's the first time I listen to something that wasn't trying to imitate a "Lebanese sound", but just doing their thing in pure honesty. Living here is not about enduring the bombs and the misery, it's just about making fun of it, as it weirdly became something natural. There's no drama, there's no denial about the reality we're living in, there's only how we're living, with the eternal struggle between the Western liberal influence and the Eastern narrow-mindedness that is keeping us to the ground.
... but what the hell, we do the best of it.
The videos don't show much, but just enough to make you want to hear the real thing. Both videos were amateurishly taken by some cell-cam, but those are just samples. If you find it interesting, I got a link to their self-titled debut that was released in December 09.