Two
or
The Dragon
Two or The Dragon is the Beirut based electro-acoustic duo by Abed Kobeissy and Ali Hout. the project was sparked when Kobeissy and Hout began to compose music as a duo for contemporary dance and theater performances. Their music as well as their compositions for theater and contemporary dance productions featured them in festivals and concerts in all continents except Australia for some reason.
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Their dismissively unapologetic music speaks deconstruction, dance grooves, industry, satire, and hints of a deniable melancholy. Regardless of their work’s “ethnic” identity, and despite their traditional instruments, their music is saturated with a local and current identity, rather than traditional music references. The highly urban and ever restless facets of Beirut play the major role in deciding their sounds and aesthetics; The never-ending ever-expanding construction sites to constantly reshape the city, the randomly scattered electricity generators, thousands others to pump water from wandering tankers into buildings, a continuous carpet of noise that has become the soothing agent of amnesia in an absurdly long post-war period.
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DANCE GROOVES FOR THE WEARY
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Dave Foxall wrote for "A Jazz Noise":
"Dance Grooves For The Weary is punctuated by deep moments of brief stillness and near-emptiness, highlighted by low-volume microsounds, like dust settling. Tiny instances of aftermath and truncated peace. But every pause, every silence is inevitably broken; often harshly… except for the last, of course, but even after the final dramatic silence, you’re waiting for more… Inspired by a piece written by Kobeissy in autumn 2020, after, “the most violent summer in Lebanon’s history,” this is no gentle dronescape. Dance Grooves… is full of suddenness, an unpredictable cycling of moments that surprise and even shock; sonic events from a clear blue sky. This is brutally stirring, visceral, overwhelmingly emotional and whether you call it ‘dance music’ or not, your body will want to move." “DANCE GROOVES FOR THE WEARY” marks a departure from Two or The Dragon’s usual trademarks. The prevailing attitude here is one of sobriety and caution, undoubtedly as a result of the events that started dismantling the fabric of Lebanese society, from October 2019 to the present day.
Kobeissy's solo piece, on which this EP is based, was composed in the Fall of 2020, following THE most violent summer in Lebanon’s history. As “DANCE GROOVES FOR THE WEARY” progresses, the initial sense of sobriety and caution seems to have run its course. The physical detonation of the drum machine - an agent provocateur of sorts - paves the way for an emotionally charged finale, with faint traces of a Bizet melody and a grinding, distorted daf. At the heart of this new work is a desire to provide solace for the megalomaniac, the tired, the frightened, the bored, and the hopeful alike. A slap in the face of Lebanon’s ongoing, undeterred collective amnesia. |
Abed Kobeissy: buzuq, effects, drum machine
Ali Hout: floor-tom, kick drum, Iranian daf, paper clips
"Dance Grooves For The Weary" is based on a solo composition by Abed Kobeissy, written and performed for the "Morphine x Beirut" fundraiser in October 2020, re-arranged and adapted for duo by Two or The Dragon in December 2020.
Recorded and mixed by Fadi Tabbal at Tunefork Studios, Beirut.
Produced by Two or The Dragon and Fadi Tabbal.
Mastered by Cedrik Fermont at Syrphe, Berlin.
Artwork by Jana Traboulsi.
Ali Hout: floor-tom, kick drum, Iranian daf, paper clips
"Dance Grooves For The Weary" is based on a solo composition by Abed Kobeissy, written and performed for the "Morphine x Beirut" fundraiser in October 2020, re-arranged and adapted for duo by Two or The Dragon in December 2020.
Recorded and mixed by Fadi Tabbal at Tunefork Studios, Beirut.
Produced by Two or The Dragon and Fadi Tabbal.
Mastered by Cedrik Fermont at Syrphe, Berlin.
Artwork by Jana Traboulsi.
Prelude For The Triumphant Man
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"Anyone who’s spent time in cities like Cairo and Beirut would understand where Two or the Dragon members Abed Kobeissy and Ali Hout are coming from with this bizarre and fearsome EP. The blaring car horns, the smog- and dust-choked air, the surreal sight of a half-finished mega mall in the suburban desert or a bombed-out luxury hotel in the middle of chic downtown—the duo is taking in these signs of reconstruction and development and churning it out in the manner of Einstürzende Neubauten or the Eraserhead soundtrack, with a Middle Eastern industrial twist."
--Peter Holslin (EP released on Nawa Recordings 2017)
Two or The Dragon's 3 part EP "Prelude For The Triumphant Man” kicks off with a deconstructed melodic coughing of the Saba Maqam (Arabic music mode), romanticizing the phantom-like presence of the drilling and banging of post-war reconstruction and urban development sites, the incessant hum and vibration of thousands of small privately owned electricity generators and water pumps in building entrances, the constant grid-locked traffic, leading to a strange yet inevitable sort of faint melancholy. Enter an unjustified dance, a pop moment with a leading tumultuous buzuq and an edgy processed darbouka, in a dangerous and festive celebration of absurd accomplishments. Enter the poet who introduces the victor, with a wailing political rallying poem about a great and holy triumph to come, spoken in an unfathomable pseudo-Arabic tongue, of which we can’t understand a word, but the speech works nonetheless. "Prelude For The Triumphant Man” is about the tyrant-god's triumph over everyone else. |
STELLAR BANGER
STELLAR BANGER This beat noise quartet emerged from a collaboration at the Irtijal Festival for experimental music in Lebanon. Hailing from Beirut, Abed Kobeissy and Ali Hout are tackling Arabic music’s capacity to express urban soundscapes as an intrinsic part of its local aesthetics. The German based musicians trumpeter Pablo Giw and percussionist Joss Turnbull are working with the extensions of their instruments to the full means of sonic-intertwine, instrumental deconstruction and acoustic replay. |
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DATA IS
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Influenced by the absurd realities of a world overridden by COVID-19, far-right politics and bloody popular uprisings, the music might seem chaotic at first; but hidden within a multi-matrix of patterns, rhythms and colors, an elusive yet imposing structure begins to emerge, a pulsating musical bed composed of grainy, poly-layered pink-noise eruptions.
A case in point would be lead track “Data Is,” a bewildering example of musical defragmentation, overlaying sample shreds, stutters and tremolo patterns, unraveling as a sonic reminder of pre-existing musical idioms. The track inexorably builds up and climaxes into a giant cluster of pixels and dots; an audiophiliac prophecy of digitization, set to ghostlike incantations of astronomical objects and cosmic junk data. |
By incorporating digital effects to their instrumental work, Stellar Banger creates pulsating soundscapes of grainy-raw-and-poly-layered-pink-ecstatic-stutter.
After a number of tours and concerts in Köln, Nuremberg, Mannheim, Wuppertal, and Beirut, Stellar Banger will release their first EP "DATA IS" with Ruptured Music in May 2021.
After a number of tours and concerts in Köln, Nuremberg, Mannheim, Wuppertal, and Beirut, Stellar Banger will release their first EP "DATA IS" with Ruptured Music in May 2021.
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Abed Kobeissy (buzuq, effects)
Ali Hout (percussion, effects) Joss Turnbull (percussion, effects, samples) Pablo Giw (trumpet, effects) |
MOURTAFA' 1000
MOURTAFA' 1000
Mourtafa' 1000 is a combination of two of Beirut’s most prolific musical couples: Abed Kobeissy & Ali Hout (Two or The Dragon) with Sharif Sehnaoui & Tony Elieh (Karkhana, Calamita, Wormholes Electric…). The four musicians had already worked together in various projects and the idea of a quartet soon became self-evident. It was finally launched in September 2019 during Mannheim’s Planet Ears Festival.
The band aims to explore how various musical genres and esthetics can co-exist to form a unified field. They draw on a vast and eclectic array of backgrounds to create the plateaus that give life to the music: from traditional to rock, experimental to electronic, noise to free improvisation. Despite an attachment to their respective instruments, the quartet opens up its sonic spectrum by a heavy use of electronics, effects, samplers as well as extended techniques.
Abed Kobeissy: buzuq, effects
Ali Hout: percussions, effects
Sharif Sehnaoui: electric guitar
Tony Elieh: electric bass
Mourtafa' 1000 is a combination of two of Beirut’s most prolific musical couples: Abed Kobeissy & Ali Hout (Two or The Dragon) with Sharif Sehnaoui & Tony Elieh (Karkhana, Calamita, Wormholes Electric…). The four musicians had already worked together in various projects and the idea of a quartet soon became self-evident. It was finally launched in September 2019 during Mannheim’s Planet Ears Festival.
The band aims to explore how various musical genres and esthetics can co-exist to form a unified field. They draw on a vast and eclectic array of backgrounds to create the plateaus that give life to the music: from traditional to rock, experimental to electronic, noise to free improvisation. Despite an attachment to their respective instruments, the quartet opens up its sonic spectrum by a heavy use of electronics, effects, samplers as well as extended techniques.
Abed Kobeissy: buzuq, effects
Ali Hout: percussions, effects
Sharif Sehnaoui: electric guitar
Tony Elieh: electric bass