Modern Individual by Jad Atoui, Jawad Nawfal & Sharif Sehnaoui

"Modern Individual confoundingly sounds like it was recorded simultaneously in a metallic cathedral and a close mic’d circuit board. Frayed guitars meet brutalist electronics and caustic glimmers, while the use of negative space recalls dub as much as anything else. Heavy, febrile and meditative all at once. The trio’s focused, unhurried exploration of texture turns what could be oppressive obliqueness into a compelling sound world." - Spools Out: The Best Cassettes of 2024

"The Lebanese trio of Jad Atoui, Jawad Nawfal and Sharif Sehnaoui make the abrasive meditative. Their music evokes cold metallic spaces, it sounds like it’s perpetually reverberating through a derelict silo. Yet it brings unlikely serenity. [The three musicians] combine to create sounds equally resonant with AMM’s radical non-idiomatic strategies, the most greyscale ends of electronic music and the claustrophobic density of This Heat. In doing so, they extract vibrant hypnosis from bleak textures." – Daryl Worthington, The Quietus, March 2024

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Jad Atoui is a Lebanese musician, composer and sound experimentalist, who relies on bio-sensors, field recordings and analog gear to create complex electronic compositions. In 2015, in collaboration with scientist Ivan Marazzi, Atoui spearheaded the “Biosonics” project, which aims to incorporate natural plants' behaviors as compositional tools. The project was later published in John Zorn’s “Arcana Book Vol. XVIII” and premiered at The National Sawdust as part of The Stone’s commissioning series. Atoui has worked and performed with renowned musicians such as John Zorn, Laurie Anderson, Marc Ribot and Chuck Bettis, and has an ongoing collaboration with Lebanese musician Anthony Sahyoun under the moniker NP.

Lebanese electronic composer and producer Jawad Nawfal created sonic alter-ego Munma in the aftermath of Israel’s war on Lebanon in the summer of 2006 – releasing three acclaimed albums for Lebanese imprint Incognito in quick succession. In 2012, he started working with Lebanese slam poet El Rass, and the two musicians released two albums exploring the darker sides of rap and hip-hop, reconfiguring the genre to include elements of bass and electronica. Between 2014 and 2016, Nawfal collaborated with Belgian electronic producer Kirdec on several releases for his label Syrphe. His album “Three Voices” (2016) explored the possibilities of the human voice within an ambient electronic framework. In 2019 Nawfal founded label VVVA (https://vv-va.bandcamp.com/), as a platform for his expanding collection of unreleased tracks and experimental side projects.

Beirut-born guitarist Sharif Sehnaoui specializes in free improvisation and is equally at ease with both the electric and acoustic guitar. By preparing his instruments using specific techniques, he expands their sound spectrum in individual ways, experimenting as well with the percussive qualities of the guitar. Together with improvising musicians Mazen Kerbaj and Raed Yassin, Sehnaoui co-founded Irijal, an experimental music festival that has taken place annually since 2001 in Beirut – the only one of its kind in the Arab world. His numerous projects include 'A' Trio, Calamita, Wormholes and Mourtafa3 1000, among others.

Tracklist

1.	Last Day At The Flea Market	4:44

2.	Public Outburst	4:48

3.	Modern Individual	5:44

4.	Sends And Returns	3:28

5.	Shift The Basis Of Differentiation	9:52

6.	A Nearly Fatal Solution	4:20

Credits

released February 23, 2024

Jad Atoui – modular synthesizer
Jawad Nawfal – bass guitar
Sharif Sehnaoui – electric guitar

Music composed and performed by Jad Atoui, Jawad Nawfal and Sharif Sehnaoui in Beirut between January and August 2023.

Mixed and produced by Jawad Nawfal.
Mastered by Cedrik Fermont at Syrphe, Berlin.

Photograph by Nour Raad.
Design by Maya Chami.

RPTD049

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