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.
|
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.
|
DANCE GROOVES FOR THE WEARY
|
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
|
"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. |