Daou is the music project of Paris-based musician, architect and multidisciplinary artist Georges Daou.

ماكي مكوك - رام الله - فلسطين
Makimakkuk is a music artist based in Ramallah, Free Palestine.

Rekindled fears and coups of immediacy. Borne through lines of flight, subversion schemas and detriments

Lebanese indie label Ruptured was founded in 2008 by music promoter/radio producer Ziad Nawfal and sound engineer/producer Fadi Tabbal from Tunefork Studios, as an outlet for their activities as music producers and promoters in Beirut. 
Ruptured aims to release material by Lebanese and international artists, with a strong focus on alternative rock, electronic and experimental music.

As a DJ, Sound Artist, and Photographer, Rami's practice reflects a life lived at the crossroads of cultures and places. Subtly confronting and surprising, his works aim to empower imagination as they retell stories through music. They are an invitation to explore themes of memory, time, migration and forced existential exile. 

His first live performance was in Madame Claude’s infamous EXPERIMONTAG nights, one of the strongholds of Berlin’s experimental music scene. From there he appeared at Tresor’s New Faces, Silent Green, OHM, and ELSE and established a presence in Berlin's night culture. Rami has also made a name as radio host through monthly residencies on Radio Alhara, Noods Radio, and Cashmere Radio. 

Insijam, his show on Cashmere Radio focuses on the essence of chances and encounters. In Arabic, Insijam means harmony, and in this show different sounds peacefully coexist and enhance each other. Musique Concrète naturally merges with traditional Lebanese music, spoken words, and improv jazz. In these performances, Rami forms an auditory journey that deeply resonates with feelings of displacement and the eternal quest for belonging. To deliberately bring about this sentiment, Rami is versatile in using media - tapes, recordings and vinyl collected in the fragmented places that influenced him, are puzzled and layered together. They build fluid structures that bring people together and make them belong- through the experience of listening. 

For “love is on my side” on Noods Radio, Rami showcases Cold Wave, Post Punk and Synth tunes with a focus to offer a space for reflection. 

"Layali Insijam" on Radio Alhara, is a continuation of the INSIJAM project by documenting Folk music from Lebanon by highlighting musical plays and instrumental pieces. Radio is an important vessel of self-expression for Rami, and in his words, working with Radio made him a better listener and DJ.  

Moreover, Rami’s sound projects extend to sound art by amplifying chairs and manipulating samples of traditional Lebanese instruments. The Oud, Nay, Qanun, and Tabla intertwine with electro-acoustic elements, field recordings from Beirut and Berlin, and spoken words to evoke a sense of contemplation. 

But his examination of places and spaces and their significance for one’s identity and sense of belonging doesn’t stop here. As a photographer Rami’s current focus is on taking urban pictures. He seeks to find a deeper understanding of boundaries. They either separate or unify public and/or private realms, giving birth to spaces, which Rami coins as a “diasporic field”. Within these newly human-defined spaces, the pictures serve as a mirror. They capture and reveal these for Rami so important themes of remembrance and displacement.

Rami’s pursuit of harmonizing a fusion of influences - may it be via sound or visual art - acts as a reminder to embrace the beauty of chance encounters and form deep contemplations about belonging and the fluidity of cultural identity.

Written by Theresa Baumel -

Use Knife is the exciting result of the raw synergy between Iraqi vocalist and percussionist Saif Al-Qaissy—who fled war-torn Iraq—and Belgian musicians Kwinten Mordijck and Stef Heeren, known for their passion for analog synths and organic wind instrumentation. 

The band tell a necessary tale of freedom, responsibility and the gulf between the Eastern and Western mindset. Even the instrumentation itself reflects this constant friction; intuitively muddling distorted industrial textures and jerky EBM pulses with brittle Iraqi rhythms and tonalities, Use Knife devise their own distinct harmony against the dissonant global backdrop. 

Debut album 'The Shedding of Skin' (2022) received critical acclaim by The Quietus, Mixmag and Knack Focus, a.o.. They played at festivals such as Le Guess Who?, Sonic City, Videodroom, Grauzone, Botanique, Worm, Wrong Fest, Roadburn, Suoni Per Il Populo, Wave-Gotik-Treffen and We Are Open a.o.

Additionally, ‘Peace Carnival’ was released on Morphine Records —a 10” remix EP featuring tracks from the debut album reinterpreted by Muqata’a مقاطعة, Zoë Mc Pherson, and Rabih Beaini.

Their new album ‘État Coupable’ (March 2025) is mixed by Jerusalem in My Heart's Radwan Ghazi Moumneh, who also created the contrasting ambient 2nd part of the title track, while New York based engineer Heba Kadry (Ryuichi Sakamoto, Nicolás Jaar) handles the mastering. Nihiloxica’s drummer Spooky-J, also laid down a post punk beat on first single ‘Freedom, Asshole’.

Youniss Ahamad crafted Use Knife’s distinct visual language, evoking rawness through direct and distorted imagery, and developed scenography and visuals that truly enhance their live show, creating “an all-embracing vortex that allows those experiencing it to plunge, headfirst, into a hypnotic state that veers between a dreamlike trance and a sensual workout.” (The Quietus)

Their radio show ‘Feeding The Gentry’ airs monthly on Palestinian Radio Alhara.

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