The Sónar Music (only) Recap

Oddly enough, I’m about to start this blog post about the oh-so-amazing Sónar music and multimedia art festival I just attended in Barcelona, Spain while listening to Beethoven’s Symphone No. 9.

My friend, Stefanie, has talked to me about Sónar for as long as I’ve known her. Stefanie and I are music addicts, junkies…whatever you want to call us; we love music! So, of course when we both found ourselves living in Europe in 2012 our Sónar talks became concrete plans. Lucky for me a random selection of friends from all over the world and different phases of my life all decided to flock to Sónar this year, too.

In short, Sónar was an unforgettable experience. In an attempt to preserve this amazing memory, here’s a list of favorite tracks from the 3 amazing Sónar days (list is in no particular order):

• Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs: Trouble

• John Talabot: So Will Be Now

• Metronomy: The Bay

• deadmau5: Ghosts’n’Stuff

• Die Antwoord: I Fink U Freeky

• Laurent Garnier ft. LBS: Jacques in the Box

• When Saints Go Machine: Fail Forever

• Maya Jane Coles: When They Say

• Nina Kravitz: Ghetto

Easing Two Country’s Tension with a Song!

Between the summer of 2009 and early 2010 Egypt and Lebanon made many headlines. Tensions were high starting in the summer of 2009 when Hezbollah members were arrested and tried in Egypt for supposed spying and terrorist attacks plotting on resorts often frequented by Israelis.

The tensions kept rising and in early 2010, at the height of the blockade on Gaza, stone-throwing demonstrators made their way to the Egyptian embassy in Beirut to voice their anger against claims that Egypt began to build a deep metal wall along its border. Reports claimed that when it is finished the wall will be 10-11km long and will extend 18 metres below the surface.

It is worth mentioning that after the Egyptian Revolution earlier this year, the Rafah Crossing Border has been reopened after pressure was placed on the interim military government in Egypt by the Egyptian people.

As art is often used to defuse emotional tension and create peace in it’s own way, this song was released in the summer of 2010. I have loved listening to this song during my stay here in Lebanon.

The song is between an Egyptian woman and a Lebanese man. They both are singing about cultural and historical monuments and places in their respective countries and at the end they both confess their love and appreciation to each other and the country’s they both come from.

Fairuz in the Morning

Fairuz is a national living symbol in Lebanon which sparks Lebanese pride wherever and whenever heard. Growing up in Cairo with my mother and two sisters, I recall Fairuz playing across the house when we returned home from school. One year in the early 1990’s my mom and sisters told me that they had a dentist appointment to go to and since I had school the next morning that I was not to go with them and stay home with the babysitter – I still remember thinking they were dressed too nice for the dentist but I complied with the instructions as any 8-year old would do. Years later I came to find out that they went to see Fairuz in concert in Cairo.

I was able to see her a decade later in Los Angeles and I remember crying when she sang “Zorouni” (Translation: Visit Me, a powerful song that is sure to pull on any expatriate’s heart strings far away from their home. 

Fairuz’s short, sweet and authentically Lebanese tunes speak of everyday life: the mountains, drunken neighbors, and most importantly a unified Lebanon and sad stories of the war. I was surprised to learn that her music is for the most part strictly listened to in the morning amongst the Lebanese people while they’re getting ready to start their day. While flipping through the radio one morning on my drive to work I found several local channels playing Fairuz.

One of Fairuz’s great contributions to the music society is her son Ziad Rahbani, who I should probably write a whole separate post on.

Great NPR report on Fairuz.