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Low Toms Bright Bells and Darkest Spells

by Elyse Tabet with Pascal Semerdjian and Yara Asmar

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Low Toms 05:26
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Bright Bells 04:49
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about

ELYSE TABET is a Lebanese audiovisual artist and electronic musician. She works with recorded and synthesized sound to create electro-acoustic landscapes and deconstructed rhythmics, drawing her inspiration from musique concrète, ambient, industrial electronica, dub and garage beats. Elyse began working in the field of audiovisual interaction in the early 2000s, mainly as a videographer for live performances and DJ sets. She has collaborated on projects with electronic producer Jawad Nawfal, drummer and producer Nabil Saliba, electronic musician Yangfan Li, video artist Maureen Castera, and Lisbon-based artist and curator Violeta Lisboa. Elyse is a co-founder of the Beirut Synthesizer Center.

“Low Toms Bright Bells and Darkest Spells” is Elyse’s third release, following “Newfound Grids” on Berlin-based Syrphe in 2013 and "Coast" on Beirut-based label VV-VA in 2020, the latter a duo with Lebanese musician Jawad Nawfal. Just shy of 30 minutes, the album was recorded in two installments: the first session featured acoustic drums set opposite drum machine and synthesizers; while the second juxtaposed the metallophone over the first layer of recordings. The final form of the music was still unclear, when Elyse and Pascal first sat together in the studio to record. Those initial hours of studio improvisations were rich in high contrast sounds, and bolting speeds crashing to exhaustion.

Jams between Yara and Elyse consisted of synthesizers, drum machine toms and the metallophone, and carried a similar spirit of bright metallic sounds, eerily reverberating melodies and graveling percussions. These in turn led to Yara’s contribution to the project, laying down her own improvisations over Elyse and Pascal’s tracks. The resulting recordings were digitally mixed and molded by Elyse into the final tracks. Throughout the production process, the channel of the drum machine was discarded for the sake of an oddly acoustic sound, reigning atop the electric and digital compositions.

YARA ASMAR is a Lebanese multi-instrumentalist, video artist and puppeteer currently living in Beirut with her cat Mushroom. She incorporates a wide range of eclectic instrumentation into her performances, including the piano, accordion, metallophone and theremin. Her debut album “Home Recordings 2018–2021” was released by Hive Mind Records in September 2022.

PASCAL SEMERDJIAN is a Lebanese multi-instrumentalist. He co-founded acclaimed Lebanese dream pop/shoegaze trio Postcards in 2013 and post-rock collective Sanam in 2022, of which he is the drummer and co-composer. Pascal is a featured guest drummer on multiple projects, including lo-fi rock band Interbellum, indie rock duo The Bunny Tylers, and surf rock trio Prefaces.


"L’alternance entre le son tamisé, filtré et l’ouverture du timbre apporte contraste et subtilité, et dans certains passages, les accords de septième utilisés en arpèges ajoutent au coté étrange et contemporain. Entre dissonance et consonance la teinte globale ne tombe pas dans la mélancolie. En résulte une écoute stimulante qui évite la facilité avec classe, dans un contraste mêlé de mystère et de grâce." - Bastien Jouvin

credits

released December 2, 2022

Elyse Tabet – modular synthesizers, DAW processing
Yara Asmar – metallophone
Pascal Semerdjian – drums

Music composed by Elyse Tabet with Yara Asmar and Pascal Semerdjian.

Recorded in December 2021 and January 2022 by Fadi Tabbal at Tunefork Studios, Beirut.
Mixed and produced by Elyse Tabet, with additional mixing by Fadi Tabbal.

Mastered by Cedrik Fermont at Syrphe, Berlin.

Photography by Rachel Tabet.

RPTD 043

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Ruptured Records Beirut, Lebanon

Ruptured Records was founded in 2008 by DJ and radio host Ziad Nawfal and sound engineer & studio owner Fadi Tabbal, as an outlet for their activities as producers and promoters in Beirut. Ruptured releases music by artists from Lebanon and the MENA region in a variety of formats - with a strong focus on experimental rock and leftfield electronic music. ... more

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