Described by All Music Guide as one of the best experimental guitarists of the 1990s, German-born Hans Tammen likes to set sounds in motion, then sit back to watch the movements unfold. Using textures, timbre and dynamics as primary elements, his music is continuously shifting, with different layers floating into the foreground while others disappear. Whether richly processed guitar sounds from his hybrid interactive guitar/software instrument “Endangered Guitar”, traditionally notated material for his Third Eye Chamber Orchestra, or graphically notated elements for the all-electronic Dark Circuits Orchestra, his music flows like clockwork. He calls his guitar work “Endangered Guitar” because of the extreme alterations he enacts upon his instrument’s sound and construction, resulting in a hybrid guitar/software instrument made to interactively control live sound processing.

Lebanese post-rock sextet Kōzō 構造 deals with the future of a long-forgotten past. Creating a soundtrack for buildings of post-war japan with contemporary palettes, taking cues from post-rock pioneers such as Do Make Say Think and Slint, melded with upbeat math-rock inspired elements that burst into choir-like vocals.

Khyam Allami “Terry Riley’s In C (Maqam Rast remodel)”

Khyam Allami electronics

As part of his ongoing research into the potential to translate the fundamentals of Arabic music into contemporary compositional practices and vice-versa, Iraqi-born Khyam Allami debuts a solo, electronic, rendition of Terry Riley’s seminal minimalist composition “In C”, retuned and remodeled in the Arabic Maqam Rast, using a custom-coded micro-tuning software patch developed in Max for Live with London-based programmer Charles Matthews.

Karkhana

Umut Çağlar zurna, guimbri, percussion
Mazen Kerbaj trumpet, electronics
Sam Shalabi oud, electric guitar
Sharif Sehnaoui electric guitar
Maurice Louca organ
Tony Elieh electric bass
Michael Zerang drums, percussion

Combining some of the most innovative players from each of three cities (Beirut – Cairo – Istanbul), Karkhana met in Beirut for the first time in February 2014 with the very ambitious aim to bring together elements from the three major experimental music scenes of the area. The band’s music strives to create a unique musical blend combining free jazz and psychedelic rock with various shades of ethnic and traditional music, encompassing traces of Shaabi, Tarab… Building on the multi-instrumental capacities of its members, the group creates an atmosphere full of surprises for both the listeners and the performers themselves, developing what could possibly be called a “Free Middle-Eastern Music”.

Ziad Nawfal & Essabbagh
Closing DJ sets