PRESS KIT

ABOUT

“A Sonic Uprising in the Shadow of Unending Disaster'' With a powerful sound and stage energy, resonant with that of the Comet is Coming, Maryam Saleh, and Taxi Kebab, the multi-instrumentalist trio Ishtirak prepare to released their debut self-titled album on the 13th of May, 2024 on Lebanese label Thawra Records.

In Arabic, Ishtirak means communication, participation, or subscription. In Lebanon, Ishtirak refers to that strong two-phase electricity cable that connects you to the closest privately run generator, which are usually controlled by neighborhood gangsters.

A 10-track opus of sizzling synth-infused Acid Jazz with flavors of Arabic Maqam, Progressive Rock, and Leftfield Electronic, the album was improvised and performed by the trio composed of Dylan Greene, Samah Boulmona and Jeremy Thal - on live Drums & Percussion, an original Alpha Juno II Synthesizer, and French Horn, Melodica and a half-busted OP-1 - on a hot and sticky July weekend in 2021, in a post-covid and post port-explosion Beirut.

This was a time when the country was still heavily reeling from a complete economic collapse, and where fuel and electricity were scarce. For the first time in a long time, the city that never sleeps would fall almost completely into darkness at night. And just like a power cable directly into some unknown metaphysical generator, Ishtirak was born, with each song recorded in between power cuts, its length and sonic journey dictated by the amount of time the trio could physically plug-in and press record. Ultimately, for the band, the album represents the collective human creative power to resist mafia governments and soulless empires, and to triumph above those forces that try to stop us from expressing ourselves and creating.

Produced in collaboration with Lebanese veteran musician Etyen, the LP is an electrifying and bold body of work, embodying the idea of collaboration and coming together to resist and persist. Ishtirak is a kind of journal entry; a sonic picture of the internal and external environment of Beirut at the time, that is as ever relevant today. With this first release, the trio announce and power a sonic uprising in the shadow of unending disaster, with a loud and thunderous clap-back at those that want to turn off the lights.

“For a brief moment, the entire future was contained in my mind in the form of a lightning flash that illuminates the enormity of the unknown.” — Ghassan Kanafani

DEBUT LP ‘ISHTIRAK’

PRESS QUOTES

“An amazing amalgam of Arabic eastern melody, modern jazz, and eletronic beat forgiing…khamsa amper is an astonishing piece!”

Cliver Craske Reverb Radio

“Mad sound, unlike one I have heard before”

Ross Allen, NTS UK

“Disarmingly beautiful and powerful music!”

Kenneth Lobo, DJ Mag

“From the explosive momentum established by the opening piece ‘mtallat’ to the beautiful valedictory lament of the f inal track ‘feels like leaving’, it’s totally addictive.”

Songlines Magazine

ARTICLES / PLAYLISTS LINKS

SCENENOISE The Best Post-Rock Acts in the MENA Region

KEXP Playlist: Pacific Notions ~ May 19th 2024

SONGLINES Issue August/September 2024

GONZO CIRCUS Magazine Issue #183

BYTE FM

BOOKING
henry@significantothers.world

EMAIL
ishtirakmusic@gmail.com

LABEL
Thawra Records
https://thawrarecords.bandcamp.com/

Jeremy Thal, Co-Founder & Artistic Director of Found Sound Nation, is a horn player, composer, and educator. He studied horn, ethnomusicology, and Chinese at Northwestern University, and continues to work as a performer, playing in major music festivals and obscure bookstores around the world. With fellow co-founder Chris Marianetti, Jeremy co-designed Found Sound Nation’s approach to socially-engaged music creation, and has co-led FSN projects in Haiti, Zimbabwe, New Orleans, Mexico, Indonesia, Italy, and Switzerland. Jeremy has served as a lead teaching artist at the Weill Music Institute at Carnegie Hall, running innovative music production workshops with incarcerated youth in New York City. A founder of ZeroBit Music, he composes and produces music for film, theater, web sites, and video games. As a horn player Jeremy has recorded and toured with indie rock heavyweights Jeff Mangum and The National, and leads his own band, Briars of North America.

Samah Boulmona is a self-taught accordion player, composer, and singer hailing from Chanay, Lebanon. Inspired by his father playing the Oud, he imitated traditional rhythms and Maqams (Classical Arabic music scales) at an early age using toy keyboards and fake plastic percussion. At the age of 20, Samah custom tuned his first accordion to access a wider range of scales and Maqams. In 2012, he ended up in Hamra, Beirut, where he would spend 8 years playing, singing, acting and composing songs for live cabaret shows, and collaborating with the country’s most renowned musicians. As an educator, Samah has led workshops for a number of non-profit organizations in Lebanon including Al Jana, Action For Hope, and other NGOs that engage with Syrian and Palestinian refugee communities. After OneBeat 2018, Samah directed the OneBeat Lebanon residency, recorded his first single, and composed a soundtrack for the documentary Kash Kash. Now living between Beirut and Rome, Samah now performs in a variety of bands and projects.

Dylan Hunter Chee Greene is an Asian Canadian American polymath. After studying percussion with Koo Nimo, Joseph Gramley and So Percussion, he began to work in New York City as a session drummer, dance accompanist, composer, percussionist, and educator. He has had numerous honors working closely with both mentors and artists he admired such as Shazad Ismaily, Elliot Cole, Christopher Botta, Mark Stuart, Isaac Hernandez, Mayram Saleh, So Percussion, Grammy Nominated A Far Cry Chamber Orchestra and counter tenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, Bessie winning choreographers, Rebecca Lazier and Christopher Williams, MacArthur awardee, Matt Aucoin, and Peabody award winning podcast, Radiolab. With organizations such as Music Beyond Measure, Mark Morris Dance Center, and Decoda of Carnegie Hall, he has led percussion and audio-production workshops in highschools, prison-reform centers and orphanages. As a producer and composer, he now works on albums, museum installations, podcasts, and film scores such as Kash Kash without feathers we can’t live (winner of CPHDOX, First Steps Award, DOC NYC and more) between NYC, London, South Africa, Germany, Lebanon, and the Dominican Republic. He has been an artist in residence with Onebeat, MASS MoCA, Avolach Farm Institute, Oyoun Kultur Neudeken, and the Peabody Essex Museum.