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 recorded their debut album with B-root Productions, 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

Music, images and tales from isolation.
From Beirut to the rest of the world [and/or vice versa].

Musiques, images et autres. Histoire de s'isoler.
De Beyrouth vers le reste du monde [et/ou vice versa]

موسيقى وصور وحكايات من العزلة‎
من بيروت الى العالم و\أو العكس صحيح

For the ephemeral joy of a collective voyage

Art Bei Ton is an artistic project focusing on merging electronic music and visual arts, though the promotion of events, podcast series and a label.  

Organizing events in Berlin and Europe since 2018, our goal is to create some immersive experiences, offering Hypnotic Techno/Ambient DJ sets and live acts, together with VJing, art exhibition, interactive audio-visual installations, performances, panels and workshops.  

Curating international artists, we want to embrace more inclusivity in the scene through the promotion of diverse and gender-balanced line ups. It is important for us to highlight female artists, queer actors of our community and fight together against all kinds of discrimination.

Contact: art.bei.ton.label@gmail.com
 ~ We don't take podcast request (only from artists playing at our event and releasing on our label).
 ~ The label is planned until June 2026, but feel free to send us music in the future ♡

Event manager: @apolline-gu-don

Residents:
- @andreacossumusic
- @aksamit-music
- @hypnotic-black-magic
- @inf001
- @mownofficial
- @samo-rane
- @luisfmr
- @naraisneus (A/V live)

paulo lamim is following