Habibi Funk 035 : Beirut City Comp

Description

Beirut City Pop brings together ten tracks from the private cassette scene in Lebanon in the late 1970s and 1980s. At the time, short-lived bands and studio projects were recording music that moved freely between disco, pop, soul, jazz, bossa, rock, and AOR. Many of these recordings were copied at home, presented in sleeves printed by neighborhood workshops, and circulated only among friends, musicians, and local residents. This limited distribution was closely tied to Lebanon’s fragmentation during the civil war. For long periods, it was difficult to leave one’s neighborhood or travel from one region of the country to another. Some cassettes were produced in extremely small quantities. Andromeda’s album, for example, may have existed in only around twenty copies, or even fewer. Others, like those by Games, were pressed in larger numbers, but the surviving copies are now almost impossible to find. Several tracks on this compilation were never officially released and survived only thanks to cassette copies passed among musicians. Many of these recordings were linked to Ziad Rahbani’s Bypass Studio, where musicians from the same extended circle would gather to rehearse, record, and take part in one another’s projects. The original idea was to bring together only tracks recorded in this studio, but it quickly became clear that the connections between these artists extended far beyond a single place. Andromeda’s recordings, made at Studio Farah, belonged to the same musical world and brought together many of the same collaborators. The title Beirut City Pop came from the desire to define this shared sound. Japanese city pop never had a single definition, but it is generally seen as a meeting point between pop, soul, jazz, rock, and AOR. This combination seemed to perfectly describe these Lebanese recordings, even if they were born in a very different context. Some tracks offer lightness and escape, while others directly address the realities of the civil war. The compilation opens with “You Turn Me On” by Stephanie Stephanou, recorded around 1985 during free hours at Bypass Studio. The track was never officially released and survived only through a few cassette copies circulating among musicians. While it could easily be mistaken for an American boogie track from the 1980s, it is in fact the product of a network of collaborators deeply rooted in Beirut, including Abboud Saadi, Ziad Rahbani, Walid Itayim, Toufic Farroukh, Samir Rifraf, and Monica Asli. Abboud Saadi is one of the central figures on this compilation. Founder of Force and Games, he is the composer behind both projects. Games was born during a break in Force’s activity, when reduced rates at Bypass