London-based Egyptian-French filmmaker and artist Susu Laroche @tsvsvnami (one half of Fertile Crescent with Oxhy, and most recently released a collaborative project with Mobbs on Modern Love) returns with a long-awaited new solo album.

Longtime collaborator of the Doyenne label after tracks on the first cassette as a split with Flora Yin-Wong, and a cover for the 'Venus Rising From The Sea' compilation via Doyenne x Boomkat. Here she hones her signature brooding Middle Eastern melodies, dabke drums and haunted vocalisations into the culmination of a contemporary artefact arriving as a wax-sealed box.

STREAM / PRE-ORDER FULL ALBUM: https://doyenne-books.bandcamp.com/album/d-09-war-against-the-lie 

After the discovery of an artefact known only as 'Body 53' in the British Museum - 'human skeletal remains; ribbon; comb; diadem; ear-ring; collar; necklace; bowl; cosmetic sample' - Laroche inquired deeper into the connections to where the body was found, at the Royal Cemetery at Ur in Southern Iraq. Coming across Queen Puabi, a prominent figure in ancient Sumer found at the same grounds, the artist drew parallels between the shadowy figure often cited as a queen, consort, or priestess, with the Sufi female saint, Rabia. 

Alongside these mytho-historical documentations, her work with Sufi texts including 'Al Hallaj Tawasin' (Book of the Purity of the Glory of the One) formed the basis of the lyrics embedded in the album. 'War Against The Lie' devises a para-fictional account of a historical law that governed this period of ancient Zoroastrian civilisation in Persia, and a buried demand for truth.

The Moth

NEXT: 
19 Oct - Frieze London Showcase with Completedworks ft. Lisa Lerkenfeldt
18 Nov: x Well Read at A Sala Lisa, Lisbon
27 Nov: Nocturn, London

Past events:
LP launch at Cafe OTO - 29 April 2025
Film showcase at Current Plans gallery, Hong Kong - Dec 2024
Book reading at Dear Friend Books, New York - Nov 2024
Takeover at Saigon Gallery, Athens - July 2024
Camden Art Centre, London - July 2024
3-part Series Residency at Ormside Projects
https://doyenne-books.bandcamp.com
Launch at Cafe OTO - 2023

Current/Previous Stockists:
Tender Books, London
ICA, London
Tate Modern, London,
Aeon Books, New York, US
MMCA Library, Seoul, KR
The Book Society, Seoul, KR
Parallaxe Records, Kyoto, JP
Objects & Sounds, Ghent, BE,
AD England, Manchester
Good Press, Glasgow
Motto Berlin, DE

Contact: Floraytw@gmail.com

New tracks tagged #Experimental, Dabke, Doomcore