Lebanese artist Raed Yassin lives and works between Beirut and Berlin. An artist and musician, Yassin’s work often originates from an examination of his personal narratives and their position within a collective history, through the lens of consumer culture and mass production. One of the original founders of Irtijal Festival, Yassin has released several music albums and founded production company Annihaya in 2009. He is also a founding member of Atfal Ahdath, a Beirut-based art collective.

Lebanese artist Yalda Younes initially studied video art before dedicating herself to dance and yoga. In her work, Younes extracts flamenco from its cultural background to (re)use it as an avant-garde form of individual expression. She has performed across the Arab world and Europe. Khyam Allami is an Iraqi multi-instrumentalist and composer. He began his musical path by studying the violin in Damascus and started studying the oud with Ehsan Emam in London, in 2004. Following the release of his widely praised debut solo oud album Resonance/Dissonance in 2011, he co-founded the band Alif and launched his record label Nawa Recordings. He has also composed for various theatre and film productions.

In the global context of chronic depression and massive political failures, Younes and Allami’s “A Universe Not Made For Us” explores a turbulent point in history from a tiny moment in the vast cosmic arena. Through the unorthodox contemporary approaches to their respective Flamenco and Arabic music forms, their unique collaboration traces a confrontation between raw subconscious forces in a landscape of audio-technical vegetation.

Rouba3i was created in 2002 when Irtijal Festival founders and Lebanese pioneers of free improv Christine Abdelnour, Mazen Kerbaj and Sharif Sehnaoui invited percussionist Le Quân Ninh to join them in Rouba3i1. They went on performing as a quartet with various guest percussionists ever since. Notable percussionists in the quartet’s lifespan include Michael Zerang, Fabrizio Spera, Sven-Åke Johansson, Charles Hayward, and Burkhard Beins, among others.

For this 19th configuration of Rouba3i, they are joined by seminal Australian drummer Tony Buck, who is regarded as one of his country’s most creative and adventurous exports, with vast experience across the globe. As a drummer, percussionist, improviser, guitarist and video maker, he has been involved in a highly diverse array of projects but is probably best known as a member of experimental jazz trio The Necks. He also creates video works for use with live music performance and has had pieces shown in Tokyo, Belfast, Berlin, New York, and Sydney.

Lebanese producer Jawad Nawfal created sonic alter-ego Munma in the aftermath of Israel’s war on Lebanon in the summer of 2006 – releasing three albums in quick succession for Lebanese imprint Incognito. 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, Munma collaborated with Belgian electronic producer Kirdec on several releases for his label Syrphe. His latest album, “Three Voices”, explores the possibilities of the human voice within an ambient electronic framework.

Nadah El-Shazly is a singer and composer living and working in Cairo. She released her critically acclaimed debut album Ahwar in 2017 via Nawa Recordings. Two years in the making, Ahwar was composed, written and produced by El-Shazly in collaboration with Maurice Louca and Sam Shalabi, handling co-composition and arrangement duties. The album was crafted across two continents, between Canada and Egypt, and features the cream of Montreal’s contemporary and improvised music scenes, notably members of Shalabi’s orchestra Land of Kush. Backing up her release with extensive worldwide touring, both as a solo artist and a four-piece band, El-Shazly has played in various international festivals including Le Guess Who?, REWIRE, Best Kept Secret, and Supersonic.

Based in Cologne, Germany, Thomas Brinkmann is an acclaimed conceptual electronic musician, and one of the leaders in the ongoing German-born study of isolationist dub-inspired techno. In addition to his production work on his own Max Ernst label, Brinkmann gained a name in the experimental and techno community for “Klick”, a series of performances in which he cuts and scratches the locked grooves of vinyl LPs. Brinkmann has released over 60 records and CDs of experimental electronic and acoustic music, including 2015’s intense, quasi-rhythmic noise excursion What You Hear (Is What You Hear) and 2016’s A 1000 Keys, a dissonant album of piano compositions dedicated to Conlon Nancarrow, on Editions Mego.