The latest POST playlist for Refuge Worldwide focuses on new music, with a specific spotlight on Lebanon despite missing the full volume of releases from that region.
Tracks are all recommended, with links provided below. The opening selection is one that demands repeat listening. Other highlights follow.
Assembling mixes like this differs from club music. Emotions spill out without prompting, forming connections words cannot describe. The result feels like moments from a lucid dream.
All items here have been released recently, though some are my own work that is not yet mastered, released, or titled. Bandcamp pages for many include lyrics, sometimes with translations:
Mayssa Jallad – Taamir (Bahriyyeh)
Biorhythm – Boundary Conditions
Huggen Luft – Instrument (feat. Pavlo Treba)
Missing Music – nichi Forester
P Kirn – (unreleased/untitled)
Temp-Illusion – Longing for Rain
kyïvite – a violin plays in the street
The Microgram – Observation Point
Liliane Chlela & LAÏ لآي – Msh Akeed – مش أكيد
P Kirn – (unreleased/untitled)
Specific notes on these tracks:
The collaboration between LAÏ and Liliane Chlela is essential. A video for the cut is available.
The kyïvite project, dating back to January, remixes archival radio recordings. The series has continued through the year:
One broadcast features remixed Ukrainian choir recordings from the 1960s. The other two are based on some of the earliest known recordings of Ukrainian folk music from the early 20th century, captured on wax phonograph cylinders during ethnographic expeditions by Lesya Ukraïnka, Filaret Kolessa and Klyment Kvitka.
I appreciate the archival recordings of the Transcarpathian Folk Choir from the 1960s, originally directed by Mykhailo Krechko.
“Longing for Rain” is a heavy, deeply felt track by Temp-Illusion.
Sawt El Doumouh by Sandy Chamoun et al has earned early mention among the year’s top releases. Album notes describe it as “flickers of light from sadness”:
Influences from the Arabic tradition of Tarab – one of the first styles Chamoun learnt to sing – and polyphonic Cantu are reinterpreted and reimagined through her voice and electronics, synths from her SANAM and Ghadr bandmate Anthony Sahyoun, and live percussion from Ali Hout.
Gag Reflex is an immediate favourite. There are thematic connections in this playlist that emerged without intent. From the release text:
Clinging Vine is a resilient plant or a hyper-dependent person, fragrant at night. It’s also a music-adjacent scheme that pursues restlessness, implied unease and surplus intentions that come out in communal spaces, when it’s a little too loud & a little too late.
Huggen Luft is another essential release. Music is by Dmytro Filatov with lyrics and vocals by Sofiia Artiukhina, who is now touring through Ukraine under ballistic missile fire. Trust the recommendation. Alongside Sofiia’s aching lyrics and Dima’s nimble rhythms, there is a soaring trumpet solo by Pavlo Treba.
These lyrics provide further reason to purchase the track:
Я це тільки інструмент для в міру порядних речей Мій мозок керується тільки кількістю недоспаних ночей
Я це тільки інструмент для в міру порядних речей Мій мозок керується тільки кількістю недоспаних ночей
Я живу і збираю трофеї Ніхто не вигравав ще такої життєвої лотереї Щоб виграш показали в усіх музеях І ця думка мене лелеїть
І я з кожним днем стаю все більше схожа на просто ідею
Я сідаю, зламана батарея Я сідаю, зламана батарея
Коли тебе нема, мені є так Як гнізду, яке назавжди кинув птах
Коли тебе нема, мені є так Як гнізду, яке назавжди кинув птах I am only an instrument for moderately decent things My brain is driven only by the number of sleepless nights
I am only an instrument for moderately decent things My brain is driven only by the number of sleepless nights
I live and collect trophies No one has ever won such a life lottery That the prize would be shown in all museums And this thought cradles me
And with each day I become more like just an idea
I’m draining, a broken battery I’m draining, a broken battery
When you’re gone, I feel like
A nest abandoned forever by a bird
That fits the moment … broken batteries.
See you in the next installment.
