Various Artists - The Drone Sessions Vol. 1 - Live at Tunefork Studios (2021) [Hi-Res]

Heady collaborative drone workouts from Beirut's Ruptured Records stable and Stockholm's Lumen Project. Deep, dense material, from floatation tank soundscapes to blunted doom rawk.

Last year, Lebanese label Ruptured Records assembled a team of 14 local musicians and paired them off to prepare a series of "drone" recordings. The results are collected on this fantastic seven-track set, that investigates the possibilities of drone music as well as its application in Lebanese leftfield music.

Opening track 'Roots' is a disarming ambient dream pop jam from Fadi Tabbal and Julia Sabra, with airy vocals smudged over throbbing analog synth pads and loops. From there, we're taken into a chattering electronic soundscape from Anthony Sahyoun & Jad Atoui and Elyse Tabet & Jawad Nawfal's gloomy, glacial dark ambient workout 'Courbe Lisse'.

The best is saved for last, a collaboration between Liliane Chlela & Ziad Moukarzel that's as grim, transcendent and blissfully noisy as Steven O'Malley and Peter Rehberg's seminal KTL sets.

Tracklist:
01 - Fadi Tabbal - Roots (11:28)
02 - Anthony Sahyoun - Walls Don’t Blink (10:08)
03 - Elyse Tabet - Courbe Lisse (11:50)
04 - Charbel Haber - And Yet Another Romance on A Sinking Ship (12:47)
05 - Aya Metwalli - Saturnus (18:45)
06 - Sharif Sehnaoui - Woe to Him (8:52)
07 - Liliane Chlela - Dahr el Baydar (9:32)