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

Independent Record Label
Based in Ramallah, Palestine.

New album Father Of All... out Feb 7. Hella Mega Tour w/ Green Day, Fall Out Boy + Weezer coming in 2021 http://hellamegatour.com

Yasmine Hamdan first made waves in the music scene with the pioneering Beirut indie electronic duo Soapkills, which she co-founded with Zeid Hamdan in the late 1990s. 

Having moved to Paris in 2005, Yasmine collaborated with Madonna producer Mirwais for the Y.A.S. project, releasing the sleeky clubby Arabology album on Universal in 2009. Since then, she has earned international acclaim as a solo singer-songwriter and producer, elegantly entwining far-ranging elements, from pan-Arabic roots and pop and poetic lyrics, to electronica, soul and guitar melodies. Yasmine has collaborated with filmmakers such as Elia Suleiman, Jim Jarmusch, and has toured globally in support of her albums Ya Nass (2013) and Al Jamilat (2017). 

Her upcoming third album is scheduled for worldwide release in September 2025 on Crammed Discs/ [PIAS].

Photo : Ylias Nao

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Max Cooper is an electronic composer, multi-disciplinary artist, music label founder and former scientist who has carved out a unique space in music and visual art.

He holds a PhD in computational biology at the same time as being the first contemporary electronic musician to perform at the ancient Acropolis theatre in Athens and one of the first clutch of musicians to produce in Dolby Atmos.

Cooper has enquired for over 15 years through music, collaborations, and his label Mesh, to explore the intersections between the arts and sciences with installations, performances, immersive experiences, online media, music videos and live events.  Anchored throughout is his emotive approach, connecting how ideas and forms feel, in a manner accessible to us all. 
 
As an artist synonymous with the evolution of club culture, Cooper honed his craft as a DJ with a 10 year residency at legendary Midlands techno event Firefly where he formed a foundational relationship with Architecture Social Club, with whom he still collaborates on extravagant immersive installations.

"I want to encourage the acceptance of electronic music as an art form like any other. Bringing electronic music and abstract audio-visual projects into concert halls, museums and galleries is liberating - the art world opens up doors to communicate in ways that aren’t possible elsewhere."
  
Pivoting from computational biology to electronic music might not seem like the most natural career transition, but for Cooper the commonalities are obvious:
 
"In both fields, you're in a sense, free. Free from the limits of living systems, free from the limits of corporeal sound. The only constraints are in your mind."

www.maxcooper.net 

Contacts:
Management: James Palmer-Bullock, The Wild Seeds - james@thewildseeds.com 
Label: Anthony Faulkner, Mesh – anthony@thewildseeds.com 
PR: Neil Bainbridge, Neighbourhood PR - neil@nbhd-group.com 
Radio: Matthew Maxey, Enganche - matthew@enganche.co.uk

I make music from my bedroom - Egypt

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-Booking/Business Inquiries: mohziena@gmail.com

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